


Forgotten is the Life We Led

by tokiNOOO (tokino)



Series: We Still Survive [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Forced Pregnancy, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Pregnancy, Spoilers, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokino/pseuds/tokiNOOO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They won’t do anything until . . . you know. We’ll be fine.”</p><p>“We weren’t fine to begin with.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> full prompt from the kink meme:
> 
> Titan shifters, unlike humans, are divided up into three distinct biological classes. The shifter trio sent to infiltrate the walls includes one of each: Reiner, the alpha, is physically the largest and emotionally the most aggressive; Annie, the beta, is the most stable and independent, with no biological urge to pair-bond; Bert, the omega, is emotionally perceptive and exudes pheromones that elicit feelings of protectiveness in others. 
> 
> When Bert and Reiner are captured by the military, Hanji is beyond excited to find out that she is now in possession of an alpha/omega pair -- more importantly, a potential breeding pair. For the sake of learning more about titan shifters, the scientists force Reiner into mating with Bert repeatedly as they watch, aiming to study the effects of pregnancy on a shifter body and the biology of a shifter baby. Despite having feelings for each other, Reiner and Bert are reluctant to cooperate, but the alternative is being tortured and then eventually killed.

Everything went to shit at the worst possible time. That was Bertholdt’s last thought when Commander Erwin slashed through the ties binding him to his and Reiner’s only hope of returning home. It had been too much—seeing the Ape Titan, having Reiner reveal their identities to Eren, running away from the scouting legion, being taunted by the fact that they were abandoning Annie to save their own hides. He’d done such a good job at pretending he wasn’t attached to anyone and he managed to screw it all up in one afternoon, all because he started to panic.

He started to panic because his heat was due soon.

He’d learned from an early age to recognize even the earliest, subtlest signs that his body was preparing for a heat. They happened three times a year and each lasted for about a week, though for the four or five days beforehand he always felt tired, sore, and restless. When he woke up chained to a wall, the throbbing pain in his throat made it painful for him to raise his head. Squad Leader Hange stood before him, her ever-present assistant warning her not to get too close. She was watching him with a stern expression, her usual enthusiasm nowhere to be seen. The way she looked him over was clinical, detached. It was terrifying.

“He’s waking up,” she said with a glance at her assistant. “Go get Reiner, Moblit.”

Bertholdt’s head dropped back down, partly out of fear and partly because his chest was heaving so hard it hurt to hold himself up. He must have been out for at least a few days, because the symptoms that preceded his heat were now painfully evident: the pain in his lower abdomen, the tenderness in his throat, his tendency to get worked up easily. He shut his eyes and tried to get under control. He couldn’t afford to let himself slip up again.

The cell door opened. He jerked upright immediately. He would recognize Reiner’s presence anywhere, but his imminent heat had increased his sensitivity. He gave a feeble, wordless cry when Moblit and a member of the military police dragged Reiner in, relieved to see that he was unharmed, if a little disoriented. Reiner tried to move closer, but Moblit and the woman from the military police kept a firm hold on him.

“What’s all this about, squad leader?” Moblit panted. It was clear he was straining to hold Reiner back. “What’s going on?”

“Ever since we learned about Eren, I’ve been researching titan shifters. You can imagine how hard that’s been until now, having only Eren and a big crystal to study.” Hange pushed up her glasses. “But I’ve been around Eren long enough to know that he goes into heat.”

“He—what?”

“Goes into heat,” Hange repeated. A glimmer of her usual chipper attitude began to return. “Like some mammals do in order to procreate. I’ve hypothesized that if there’s a titan shifter who goes into heat, then surely there must be a titan shifter who would handle the other end of reproduction.”

She was right about that, Bertholdt thought with horror as what she intended to do dawned on him. Reiner went still, a telltale sign to their captors that Hange’s hypothesis had had some sort of effect.

“I presented this hypothesis to the brass,” Hange said.

“And they gave you permission to experiment?”

“They gave me orders.” Hange came close to Bertholdt and unlocked the cuffs around his wrists, kneeling down to unlock the ones around his ankles. “They specifically requested that we see if it’s possible to create more titan shifters. If not, Levi’s been ordered to interrogate them and then dispose of them.”

Bertholdt dropped to his knees when Hange stepped back. Steam rose in thin plumes from where the cuffs rubbed his skin raw. Hiding away from Reiner during his heats had been some of the most painful weeks of his life, but right now he wanted nothing more than for them to take Reiner somewhere far away if it meant they wouldn’t have to do this.

“I do have a question, Bertholdt,” Hange said. He looked up at her numbly. “Are there, mm, terms for different shifters?”

He would have stayed silent except he was afraid that she would hurt him if he didn’t respond. “. . . Reiner is called an alpha. Eren and I are omegas. Annie is a beta.”

She pestered him with questions about how betas fit into the reproductive scheme. He blocked her out, sitting flat against the wall and burying his face in his knees, plugging up his ears, trying with every fiber of his being to stop the tendrils of pain between his legs.

At some point Hange stopped and said they were leaving. Moblit and the woman from the military police let go of Reiner, who was at Bertholdt’s side in an instant, pulling him into a tight, trembling embrace that smelled of fear and rage and regret.

“I’m sorry, Bertholdt,” he choked out. “I’m sorry I took my hand away. I’m sorry for fucking everything up.”

Bertholdt wanted to tell him that it was fine, that he forgave him, but he was tired of lying. It wouldn’t be fair to pin all of the blame on Reiner, though. He, Bertholdt, should have tried harder to remind him about their mission. He should have done a lot of things differently, but . . . “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” he murmured, placing a hand on Reiner’s fingers where they were tracing the tear through his shirt.

“Of course there is. We can shift, run away—”

“ _You_ can run away,” Bertholdt said softly. “I’m too slow in my titan form.”

“I’ll carry you.”

“Because that worked out so well last time.”

“Damn it, Bertholdt!” Reiner’s hand clenched. “Do you _want_ to be stuck here? What happened to going back home?”

Bertholdt pushed him away. “You don’t even remember what home is half the time!”

They stared at each other. It was quiet in the cell, their breathing harsh but hushed. Bertholdt curled up again and tried not to cry, but the stress was more than he could handle. He shook, squeezing his legs tighter as he tried to stop.

“Bert . . . Bertholdt . . .”

“Don’t t-touch me.” He gasped as he felt wetness between his legs, signifying the true start of his heat. It wouldn’t be noticeable at first, even to Reiner, but over the course of the evening, or whatever time of day it was, the cell would be saturated with the smell of his heat and he wouldn’t be able to stop begging Reiner to fuck him. It figured. Bertholdt didn’t have control over anything.

Reiner did as he was asked and kept his distance by sitting beside the door. Hange peered in about half an hour later, watching them through the bars. There were a few other people with her, people Bertholdt didn’t know, but they must have been the brass she mentioned earlier.

“I thought you said they were like animals,” one of them, a short old man, said. He stuck a foot in and jabbed Reiner in the side with it, jumping back when Reiner glared at him. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hange said. “When Eren went into heat at our headquarters that one time he crawled all over us.”

“Where is the Yeager boy, anyway? I’ve heard he’s being held down here as well.”

“He is. I’ve been assigned to watch just these two for now.”

Bertholdt moved when, after an hour, the heat intensified. He pulled off the tattered remains of his shirt and hesitated before taking off his pants, aware of the eyes watching him, none more so than Reiner’s.

He wrapped a hand around his cock and began to masturbate, keeping his own eyes fixated on the ceiling. It only served to make him feel more scared and ashamed. He felt like crying again when he gave up and whimpered out Reiner’s name. Reiner came to him with no hesitation, kissing him and murmuring that he was here.

“I don’t want to do this,” Bertholdt whispered, his throat tightening. 

“I know. I know.” Reiner gently pushed him down to the floor. He pulled his clothes off and rubbed his body against Bertholdt’s, marking him with his scent. They’d never had sex while Bertholdt was in heat before, but Reiner moved with confidence, slipping his fingers inside Bertholdt’s wetness. Bertholdt arched off of the floor, his fingers and toes scrabbling for purchase on the cool stone. He was aware of Hange and the others still outside the cell, but they were inconsequential. Reiner was all that mattered now, his quiet reassurances that everything would be okay making Bertholdt feel slightly better.

He cried out when Reiner slid his cock inside, his hands clawing at Reiner’s shoulders now, digging into his skin and prompting steam. “Reiner,” he gasped, “Reiner, oh . . .”

Reiner fucked him with short, powerful strokes, kissing down Bertholdt’s chest and biting at one of his nipples. Bertholdt instinctively tried to get away when he felt Reiner’s knot, whimpering again as it continued to swell and caught at the rim of his hole when Reiner pulled out and pushed back in.

“ _Reiner_ ,” he breathed out as Reiner pushed his cock inside for the last time and stilled. Bertholdt fidgeted from discomfort. They’d never knotted before, either.

Hange made the mistake of entering the cell too soon. She only took two or three steps toward them before Reiner pushed himself up on his elbows and snarled at her, the sound inhuman, chilling. She stayed put, watching them curiously. Bertholdt pulled Reiner back down so they were close, murmuring nonsense about how good Reiner felt.

Reiner’s knot went down after twenty minutes or so. Bertholdt hissed when he pulled out. The people who’d come with Hange were long gone, though Hange herself was still standing close to the cell door, watching them. Moblit was there as well, watching anxiously from the other side of the bars. He held a tray of food.

“Is that all?” Hange asked them. “Eren’s heat lasted for six days. But I guess yours will stop once you’re impregnated.”

Bertholdt sat up and tried not to think of the word. He ignored her and felt around for his clothes, lying on top of them and trying to go to sleep while his body was calm for a little bit.

“How long do shifter pregnancies last?”

“Nine months,” Reiner grunted. There was a clatter as, presumably, Moblit set the tray of food down. The smell of lukewarm soup wafted over. It made Bertholdt want to vomit.

“So you knot, like dogs do. That’s interesting. Do you have litters? Or is it more common to have just one offspring?”

Bertholdt wished she would stop asking questions. It made the churning in his stomach worse.

“Twins are the norm,” Reiner said. “Then triplets. Singletons are rarer, but not too uncommon. Any number over four is almost unheard of.”

“Which are you two?”

Reiner didn’t answer. That was a personal question, the answer to which had played the biggest role in the deciding who from their village would be sent to the walls. Bertholdt had wondered for years what things would have been like if he and Reiner hadn't had siblings. Reiner’s fingers brushed through his hair. He peered down at Bertholdt, looking concerned that Bertholdt wasn’t interested in the food. “Leave. You’re agitating him.”

“I’ll have to come back later, since I’m under orders to oversee your mating. My job is to learn everything I possibly can about you.”

Once she and Moblit were gone, Reiner urged Bertholdt to eat. Bertholdt’s hands were shaking so hard that he kept dropping his bread.

His heat flared up again before too long. The stone floor was rough against his stomach as Reiner fucked him from behind, his thrusts erratic and frenzied. Hange was summoned by Bertholdt’s scream when Reiner bit him on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood. The cycle of fucking, resting, and fucking continued for hours, long after they were both sore and it hurt to mate, but they couldn’t stop. Bertholdt was no longer sure if he was driven more by his body or by the all-consuming fear that he would killed if he didn’t obey.

Three more meals came and went before his body calmed down for good. He and Reiner slept for the first time in what felt like days. When he woke up he was quiet, listening to Reiner’s heavy snoring. Then, the full weight of what they’d been forced to do hit him. Reiner woke up when he heard Bertholdt retching violently.

“Here,” Reiner said, holding up their bowl of water and watching Bertholdt as he rinsed his mouth out. “Are you oka—no, of course not.”

“Sorry, I just . . . I’m so scared.” Bertholdt rested his forehead against the bars of the cell. “I don’t want to die, Reiner.”

“You’re not going to die,” Reiner said. He slid his hands, large and comforting, around Bertholdt’s waist. Bertholdt didn’t miss how they lingered over the flat plane of his stomach. He put his hands of top of Reiner’s, trying hard to keep his voice steady.

“They’ll kill us. Someone somehow is going to think of a good reason to. You didn’t see the way Mikasa looked at me. And the way Eren looked at you . . .” Bertholdt was crying again. He rubbed the tears away roughly, not sure if he was more scared or angry now.

Reiner pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck. “They won’t do anything until . . . you know.” The words sounded absurd coming out of his mouth. “We’ll be fine.”

“We weren’t fine to begin with.”

Hange visited them a few hours later, the corporal in tow. He stared at the two of them, his black eyes flat as ever. He tossed them each a change of clothes and waited until they were dressed before cuffing Bertholdt’s hands behind his back. Reiner he cuffed to the wall where Bertholdt had first woken up. Reiner lunged forward, struggling against the chains. He watched helplessly as Bertholdt was taken away.


	2. Chapter 2

Bertholdt was taken to a cell with a window, a fact that upset everyone they passed in the halls. There were members from every branch here, which he gleaned was because no one was sure who should have custody of them—the scouting legion and the garrison, who had captured them, or the military police, who were holding them in cells within Wall Sina?

He went to the cot and sank down. The voices outside his cell grew louder and angrier as they argued about whether or not he should be taken back down to the dungeons. Hange tried to explain why he and Reiner needed to be separated, so that she could question them without their combined attachment to each other making them more resistant. The voices shouted over her.

“You heard her,” Levi said quietly. It silenced them in an instant. “Let her do her fucking job. Unless one of you shit wipes would rather do it?”

“Levi, you must be insane to let this freak bring it up here,” a man from the military police said, looking at Bertholdt with a mix of terror and disgust. “What about the people in the district?”

“What, you’re going to let one sniveling brat scare you?”

“If it’s the goddamned _colossal titan_ , then yes!”

Levi turned to look at Bertholdt then. It scared Bertholdt even more than the yelling, because at least then he knew how his tormentors felt. Levi’s sallow face was unreadable.

Once the crowd dispersed, he and Hange came into Bertholdt’s cell. Hange sat in a chair beside his cot while Levi leaned back against the bars, his arms crossed.

“Tell me everything about shifters,” she said. “I want to know where you come from and why.”

Bertholdt held his tongue. He kept quiet even when Levi drew one of his blades.

“Levi,” Hange said when she heard the scrape of metal, “we can’t risk harming him when he might be pregnant.”

“He’ll heal.” Levi sounded unconcerned. “Or you can have the other one knock him back up.”

Hange shook her head. “I don’t know when his next heat will be. It might not be for months.”

They looked at him, waiting. His heart was beating too fast, too hard. Reiner was right—they wouldn’t do anything to him, at least for now.

“Then let’s go ask the other one,” Levi said, and now his flat tone grew sinister. It was a bluff, Bertholdt told himself. They were trying to goad him into speaking by threatening to hurt Reiner. His heart sank when Hange got out of her chair and followed Levi out of the cell. She looked back, pausing to see if he would say anything and continuing to walk when he didn’t.

It was a bluff, he told himself, clawing at his face when he heard the faint echo of Reiner’s screams.

\- - -

Hange didn’t try to ask him any more questions about where he was from or why he wanted to go back. From then on she asked him simple questions about how he felt. From day to day he felt little difference: he was tired and scared and numb inside.

“Day seventy-two,” she said, sitting down in the chair and looking him over. “How do you feel?”

“I want to see Reiner.” That was all he ever said.

“I need you to describe how you physically feel so I can compare shifter pregnancies with human ones. Do you feel more tired than usual? Do you have morning sickness?”

She slumped in her chair in exasperation when he remained silent. She and Levi quickly learned that even if they tortured Reiner, he wasn’t going to say a word. He’d fucked everything up the last time he let himself be taunted like that.

She did at least learn that, yes, Bertholdt had morning sickness when he felt a wave of nausea and dry heaved at her feet. She pushed her chair back and jotted something down; he could hear the scratching of her pen across her pad of notes.

For the first hundred days or so, she, Levi, and Moblit were his only visitors. He stayed on his cot most of the time, sometimes getting up to stretch or look out the window, where his only view was of his guards’ legs. That was what he was looking at when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. He went back to his cot feeling apprehensive. It wasn’t time for meals and Hange had already come by today.

He broke out in a cold sweat when Eren went by, accompanied by at least a dozen members of the military police. Eren’s hands were cuffed behind his back and there was a gag in his mouth, presumably so he couldn’t hurt himself to incite his transformation. His eyes caught Bertholdt’s, wild and full of rage. He dug his heels into the floor and fought every step as his guards dragged him away.

Bertholdt plugged his ears again and tried to forget what he’d seen, what he’d smelled. There wasn’t any mistaking the scent of another omega in heat.

\- - -

Four and a half months after they were captured, Bertholdt felt movement.

He stared up at the dark ceiling of his cell, his hands tensing where they rested on his stomach. He felt no sentimentality or wonder at the sensation—he felt himself panicking. He kicked the blanket off and threw himself at the bars, beating on them and yelling. The guards outside his window ignored him, but someone down the hall approached with a lantern.

“What, you ready to talk?” the man said, sneering up at Bertholdt.

“I want to see Reiner.” He was shivering.

The man squinted. “That’s something you’ll have to ask Squad Leader Hange about, not me.”

“Please!” he said when the man walked away. He huddled up and stayed there for the rest of the night, flinching when Hange touched his shoulder through the bars the next morning.

“What did you need me for?” she asked.

He turned his head to look at her and noticed that she’d brought Levi along. “I-I want to see Reiner.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Will you answer my questions from now on if I let you see him?”

He nodded hesitantly.

“He’s lying,” Levi said as he unlocked the cell door.

“I don’t know what else to do. I thought separating them would make it easier to study them but I think it just made things worse.” Hange waited while Levi cuffed Bertholdt up and jerked him out into the hall. “I’m afraid any more stress will disrupt the pregnancy.”

The walk down to the dungeon was agonizing, but Bertholdt forgot his fear when Levi let go of his cuffs for just a moment so he could unlock and open the door. Bertholdt darted past him and went to where Reiner was chained against the wall. He and his clothes were covered in blood, the only evidence left of whatever torture he’d undergone.

“Are you okay?” Bertholdt asked, sinking to his knees and sitting down so they were next to each other. Reiner’s hands were on him immediately, touching his face, his chest.

“Are _you_?” Reiner turned his head, pressing his face into the crook of Bertholdt’s neck. He smelled Bertholdt, taking in the changes in his scent. “What happened?”

“I felt them moving.” Bertholdt heard Hange go “ooh” and tell Levi to watch them while she went to get her notes. He glanced back at the corporal, who stood in the doorway with a blade drawn and held casually to the side. He wasn’t sure how to phrase his next question. “Did you—with Eren . . . ?”

Levi’s hand twitched.

“I did,” Reiner said. Bertholdt felt more than heard something akin to a growl rumbling in his chest. “It’s funny. They call us monsters, but I didn’t see him trying to help Eren.”

“My orders were to watch,” Levi said, the animosity in his tone almost as thick as it was in Reiner’s. “Not interfere.”

“What a convenient excuse.”

“At least I had one. What about your little bitch there?”

Levi only gestured with his blade, not intending to use it on Bertholdt since he had orders about that as well, but it was threatening enough that Reiner let loose another one of his alpha snarls. He lunged forward, struggling to get to Levi even when the chains held him back.

It occurred to Bertholdt that maybe he should tell Reiner to stop, but he did what he was good at and said nothing. When Hange returned, she scolded Levi for provoking Reiner and Reiner for provoking Levi.

“You and I need to go check on Eren,” she said, guiding Levi’s blade back into its sheath and meeting his glare with a frown. She began to push him away. “Let’s leave them alone for a while.”

Reiner sat back down once they were gone. Bertholdt jumped when he pulled him into a harsh kiss, his fingers tight on Bertholdt’s shoulders. He let himself be marked with Reiner’s scent and teeth, allowing himself to be pulled into Reiner’s lap so he could unbutton his shirt and kiss down his abdomen. He felt Reiner’s cock and understood what he wanted to do.

He let Reiner fuck into him as hard as he wanted, wrapping his arms tightly around Reiner’s neck and trying to stifle his pained moans. Reiner gripped his waist, pulling him back down to meet his thrusts. He gave a low whine when Reiner knotted him. Without the slickness and haziness of his heat, it was painful. He bit his lip and endured it, slumping when he felt Reiner come.

Reiner couldn’t stop running his hands over his body or kissing him along the collarbones, marking Bertholdt with his scent again. “I missed you,” he said. His fingers brushed the swell of Bertholdt’s stomach again and again. “You said you felt them moving?”

Bertholdt nodded wearily, resting his chin on top of Reiner’s head. “It scared me,” he admitted. “It made me feel sick.”

Reiner pressed his lips against his throat. “I can’t imagine.”

They were still knotted when Hange returned. She had enough sense this time to stay outside the cell, observing them for a while before interrupting their cuddling to ask Bertholdt four and a half months’ worth of invasive questions about how being pregnant was affecting him.

“I see,” she said when he finished answering her. She sounded a bit disappointed when she added, “That sounds just like a human pregnancy. Well, I guess that’s a good thing. At least we know what to expect.”

Bertholdt winced when Reiner’s knot subsided and he was able to move off of him. Hange waited until he was dressed before sending six guards in with instructions to take him on his nightly walk through the halls before bringing him back to Reiner’s cell.

They passed by Eren’s cell at some point during the walk. Bertholdt hesitated, not budging when one of the guards tried to push him forward.

“Can I see him?” he asked. The guards looked at one another uncomfortably, but in the end they unlocked Eren’s door and let him step inside. Eren sat on his cot, looking up and tensing when he saw who was entering his cell. There were dark bags under his eyes and his hands and lips were bloody from unsuccessful attempts to transform.

“What do you want?” he demanded. His body moved into a crouch, limbs tense and his jaw clenched.

“I was just . . . wondering how you were doing.”

Eren glared at him. “Why do you care?”

Bertholdt was really surprised to find he knew the answer. He also knew it would piss Eren off. “Because we’re omegas.”

“So you want to be all buddy-buddy now just because we’re both p-pr—” Eren was so angry he couldn’t finish his sentence.

“I don’t _want_ to,” Bertholdt said simply. “I just felt an urge to make sure you were okay.”

“Of course I’m not fucking okay! Everything— _everything_ —is fucked up because of you!” Eren was off the cot and at Bertholdt’s throat before Bertholdt even registered he’d moved. His fingers were tense and trembling, yet he didn’t seem to be able to make himself actually throttle Bertholdt. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “Goddamn it.” He shoved Bertholdt away and stumbled back to his cot. “Shit.”

“Eren—”

“Get out! I don’t want to see you or Reiner or Annie ever again!” Eren kicked his cot, then the wall. “ _Get out_!”

Five of the guards took Bertholdt away while the sixth one went in to calm Eren down.

He felt movement again as he lay awake that night, feeling Reiner move restlessly in his sleep beside him. He slid his hands under his shirt and pressed his fingers against his abdomen. He couldn’t feel anything outside. For now the fluttering was something only he would be able to notice.


	3. Chapter 3

Five months into their imprisonment, Eren tried to run away. 

Bertholdt awoke suddenly that night with the sharp notion that something was wrong. He pressed one hand to his stomach as he sat up, disoriented. Except for the nagging sensation in the back of his head, everything seemed to be fine.

The walls shook as if from an explosion, and then he heard it: the feral scream of Eren’s titan.

“Wha—Bert?” Reiner jerked in his sleep, one hand fumbling for Bertholdt’s. “What is it?”

“It’s Eren,” he said. “I think he finally managed to transform.”

Reiner swore, half-rising out of the cot. “He’ll get himself killed!”

“They won’t hurt him,” Bertholdt said, lying back down as the strain in his lower back grew to be more than he could stand. “Not now, anyway.”

“What if they do? There’re two of you.” Reiner’s scent was laced with fear. 

Bertholdt raised his hand and put it over Reiner’s mouth.

Hange said nothing about Eren when she and the doctor visited the next day. The doctor only tagged along every month or so to give more thorough check ups than Hange, being a scientist, was capable of. 

“Two sets of heartbeats,” the doctor said after listening with his stethoscope for a while. His fingers touched Bertholdt in a much more familiar way than Bertholdt was comfortable with. He tried not to let his discomfort show, not wanting Reiner to get overprotective and cause a scene. “Have you been thinking about names?”

Bertholdt thought it was a strange question until he realized the doctor was speaking to Hange, who tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Andrew and Christie, maybe? I think that would be cute.”

They continued to talk. Bertholdt tuned them out. He couldn’t understand why Hange saying that made him feel like he’d been doused with cold water.

“What,” he said quietly, interrupting their conversation, “are you planning to do with them?”

“Once they’re born? Study them, of course,” the doctor said, stowing his stethoscope away and folding his hands in his lap. “Hange tells me she hasn’t been able to get a whole lot of detailed information from either of you—to say nothing of Eren, or Ymir for that matter! So we have a lot of questions we need answered. How soon will they be able to shift? What exactly allows them to shift? Could we raise them to defend us from other titans?” He gave Bertholdt a thin smile. “If we can utilize their power, they’ll be a great benefit to humanity.”

“That’s the last thing I want.” It slipped out before Bertholdt could stop himself.

“Why is that?” the doctor asked, his smile broadening threateningly. “I’m dying to know what you mean by that.”

Bertholdt pulled his shirt back down and pushed himself upright. The doctor leaned in closer and grabbed hold of his shoulder, getting right in his face.

“Dr. Marion, no—” Hange’s warning was drowned out by the sound of Reiner’s snarl. He yanked the doctor up by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall hard enough to knock his glasses askew. “Reiner, _no_!”

Her blade was drawn and at Reiner’s throat in an instant, digging in just hard enough to draw blood. She met him dead in the eye and waited until he released Dr. Marion, who keeled over, coughing.

“You need to get yourself under control! Or am I going to have to put you back in solitary confinement?”

Reiner grabbed hold of the blade and pushed it to the side, ignoring the way it sliced through his palm. Hange backed up, realizing her words had only made him angrier, and whispered to Dr. Marion, “Run,” before drawing her other blade.

Bertholdt slid off the cot and put himself between Reiner and Hange’s second blade, which stopped just short of stabbing him through the liver.

“If he can’t behave, I’m going to have to keep him constantly chained up,” Hange said, tensing when Reiner growled and tried to move toward her.

“It’s in an alpha’s nature to be protective of their mate,” Bertholdt said, extracting her other blade from where it was still embedded in Reiner’s hand.

Hange relaxed just a bit, letting her blades touch the floor. “I can see that.” There was a gleam of curiosity in her eyes. “And I suppose he would be that way around Eren?”

“Of course,” he said, feeling the cold water sensation again. He went and sat back on the cot, bowing his head and feeling a headache coming on. Reiner continued to stand, eyeing Hange in a way that was more animal than human as she said something about Ymir being the same way toward Krista before she backed out of the cell and locked the door. Only after she was gone from their range of senses did Reiner come sit beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

“Of course,” Bertholdt repeated slowly, pushing his bangs back so he could look at Reiner. “Is that why you were freaking out last night?”

“Yeah,” Reiner said. He looked down at his hands, where the wound was almost done healing. “I don’t feel as strongly about him as I do about you, but it’s there.”

Bertholdt shrugged and tried not to let it bother him. “I guess it’s an alpha thing.”

“Like yours is an omega thing.”

Bertholdt couldn’t say anything to that.

\- - -

The next day, Bertholdt and Reiner were separated again. Hange took note of the fact that Reiner became much more aggressive when he thought Bertholdt was being threatened, so she and Levi chained him up before leading Bertholdt out of the cell. Bertholdt put up more resistance than he normally would, feeling anxious at being taken away again.

They took him to a small, circular cell with nothing but a cot, a table, and some chairs. They sat him down at the table. A few minutes later another pair of guards arrived with Eren in tow.

Bertholdt had felt some concern about Eren’s wellbeing, but being in the same room with him amplified his feelings to the point that he felt a little sickened by them. Eren was put in the chair across the table from him, his hands once again chained behind his back so he wouldn’t be able to bite them. He glared at the guards, then at the table. He refused to meet Hange, Levi, or Bertholdt’s eyes.

“What are you up to now?” Bertholdt heard Levi ask as they headed for the door.

“It’s difficult studying Bertholdt with Reiner nearby, but it’s impossible to study him when he’s by himself. Eren’s like that, too. So I thought having the two of them together would help them both relax and decrease the risk of one of us being maimed.”

They seemed to be under the mistaken impression that being pregnant had softened Eren’s tendencies to be violent when he was angry. The months of imprisonment hadn’t broken his spirit at all. After a couple of awkward hours where they sat at the table and tried to look at something other than each other, Bertholdt asked how he was doing.

“How do you think?” Eren said, trying to wriggle his hands free. He tried to bite at one of his shoulders in what Bertholdt eventually realized was an attempt to gnaw his own arms off.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said. Eren stopped long enough to glower at him before trying again. “Shifting and regenerating takes a huge toll on your body. You might cause yourself to miscarry.”

“So? I didn’t want to be like this in the first place. I—” Eren let his shoulders droop. “I don’t want to be here.”

“If you disturb the experiment then they’ll just have you start over from the beginning.”

“I’m not a fucking experiment!” Eren shouted. His distress called out to Bertholdt in subtle, insidious ways. The rational part of him was still terrified of Eren, but the omega in him was stifling it, telling him not to be afraid of someone who was so scared and pitiful.

“It’s okay,” he said when Eren started crying and angrily tried to blink away his tears.

“Shut up.”

Moblit pushed their food through the bars sometime later. Bertholdt tried to help Eren eat, but his efforts were refused. He ate his half of the food while Eren curled up on the cot and rolled around for a bit, trying to find a comfortable position. Bertholdt was conflicted about having to share such close space with Eren, but after a few more hours of sitting at the table he began to ache. Eren didn’t move when Bertholdt sat on the edge of the cot and gingerly pulled his legs up.

“Can you move over a little?” he asked after trying unsuccessfully to find his own position. He felt most comfortable on his side, but with Eren lying smack in the middle of the cot there wasn’t quite enough room for his stomach. Eren shuffled over perhaps an inch.

Bertholdt slept poorly that night. Eren was an animated sleeper; he jerked around and mumbled. Besides that, Bertholdt felt himself craving Reiner’s company and only finding Eren’s. When he was half-asleep he would take what he could get, which was why he woke up the next morning to find himself lying halfway onto Eren and more or less smothering him. He moved before Eren could wake up.

Being cooped together was difficult for the first few weeks. Over time, though, Bertholdt felt Eren’s anger become subdued, if only a little. Hange correctly assumed that putting two pregnant omegas together would bring out their natural desire to look after each other, and she was careful to gauge whether Eren’s anger _at_ Bertholdt would be translated into anger _for_ Bertholdt during her visits.

Eren was about three months behind Bertholdt, so when he began suffering from nauseous spells and increased fatigue Bertholdt looked after him. Eren accepted his tentative help begrudgingly, but he no longer lashed out. Five weeks after they were put into a cell together, he returned the favor.

Bertholdt couldn’t stop thinking about Reiner. He wondered what he was doing down in the dungeon by himself and if Ymir was down there suffering her imprisonment in solitude as well.

“What’s wrong?”

Bertholdt was sure he’d misheard. He glanced to where Eren was on the cot beside him, lying on his side and looking back at Bertholdt with an almost pouty expression.

“You looked upset,” Eren muttered when Bertholdt continued to stare him. He moved so he was on his back. “Forget it.”

Over the course of the next few days Bertholdt felt a spike in his libido. He mentioned nothing of it to Hange when she asked her usual questions about how he felt. When Hange posed the same questions to Eren, he said, “Can I have my own cot? We can’t share for much longer.”

“I thought being together might help you two get along.”

“I can’t sleep with his stomach poking my back,” Eren said irritably. “And he moves around a lot when he sleeps.”

Hange smiled faintly. “From what I’ve seen, so do you.”

“We need our own cots,” he insisted. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes when they spoke.

She returned later with Moblit, each of them holding one end of a cot. Levi stood by the cell door and hoisted Eren over his shoulder when he tried to make a run for it. Eren squirmed and shouted and beat on the back of the corporal’s neck. 

“Let me go! Corporal, why are you doing this? _Let me go_!”

Levi remained stone-faced as he carried the omega back into the cell and held him still while Hange cuffed him to his cot.

Bertholdt didn’t sleep at all that night, his worry for Reiner and his unwelcome worry for Eren waging war. Eren was here, however, and so after five or six hours of lying awake he moved from his cot to Eren’s and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Why don’t you try running away?” Eren mumbled. “All you do is sit here and take it. I can’t stand it.”

“I wouldn’t get very far, even if I wasn’t pregnant.” Bertholdt rested his other hand on his abdomen and felt some faint kicks. “And it’s not like I have anywhere to go.”

“What does that matter? You should keep fighting.” Eren’s hands clenched where they were chained above his head to the head part of the cot. “That’s all we can do.”


	4. Chapter 4

Eren remembered the first time he went into heat. He, Armin, and Mikasa had just become trainees and he’d been bedridden for almost a week, hiding from his friends and the doctor, eventually fleeing to the forest so no one could see what was happening to him. He even remembered what Armin said to him the day he returned.

“Bertholdt’s been out sick since yesterday. Maybe there’s a stomach bug going around.”

Eren couldn’t look at Bertholdt now without thinking about that, feeling himself burn with anger at himself for not realizing sooner what was now so incredibly obvious. He hated Bertholdt, hated being cramped in a cell with him, hated having to listen to him answer Hange’s questions in that timid, sycophantic way of his, and most of all he hated the fact that if Bertholdt so much as sneezed too hard, Eren felt the need to rush to his side and make sure he was okay.

He glared at the back of Bertholdt’s head. He was wedged behind the other boy on his cot, having gotten out of his own about ten minutes ago when Bertholdt began to mumble in his sleep loud enough to make Eren anxious.

Sharing a cot with Bertholdt was dangerous nowadays. He was about six months along and horny as hell, so Eren ran the risk of being crowded out or pawed at some point during the night. He rested his head against Bertholdt’s shoulders, feeling a sense of calm and hating it. He drifted off easily enough, but he had a hard time staying asleep. It was impossible to forget why he was here, presumably for the rest of his life.

-

The ride back to the walls was grim, though there wasn’t any denying the sense of victory that rippled through the formation. Eren rode with Hannes, Mikasa urging Armin to follow them closely in the event that Eren fell off from exhaustion. He held onto Hannes and let a sort of vicious glee overcome him. Bertholdt, Reiner, and, yes, even Ymir would be taken to wherever Annie was being held. He knew that much from the orders the commander gave as he led the way back to the walls, keeping his head up even though he must have been in pain.

What Eren hadn’t expected was to be put in chains the second his feet touched the ground inside Wall Maria. He heard Armin and Mikasa protesting as he was dragged to the cart where the other shifters lay inert, bound up and pinned with spikes through their joints. The last thing Eren remembered about that was having a pungent-smelling rag pressed to his face.

When he woke up in a dark cell, he thought for sure that someone must be playing a sick joke on him. He lay dumbfounded until sunrise, when a guard came by with food and water. She didn’t answer when Eren demanded to know why he was being treated like a criminal.

Sometimes a thin man in a coat would drop by and look at Eren wordlessly, the glint of light on his glasses making it difficult for Eren to see his eyes. Sometimes Hange’s assistant was with him. Eren always tried to appeal to him and ask for Hange.

“Not now,” he would likewise reply. “She’s busy with the others.”

Eren began to keep track of time by scratching lines into the bricks. After three months or so he curled in on himself in a corner of the cell and rocked back and forth, his emotions threatening to suffocate him. He grew restless, then exhausted, to the point that one morning he woke up and was incapable of getting off of the cot when Moblit came by with the tray of food.

Moblit brought the tray in and set it down on the small table beside the cot. Eren reached out and fumbled for his wrist. Moblit jumped and wrenched his hand away. The guard outside the cell barked for Eren to stand down.

“Get out,” Eren groaned, letting his hand drop and feeling a wave of shame wash over him as he realized what was happening. This again, this thing that had happened three times a year, ever since Wall Maria fell. He remembered when it happened while he was at the scouting legion headquarters; Hange studied him the whole week it lasted and concluded once it was over that Eren had gone into heat.

His eyes flew open. They couldn’t . . . _no_. He resisted when the guard returned with over ten others and they tried to cuff him again. He struggled as they held down his arms and legs, resorting to biting the guard who got to close to his face. In the end they stuffed a piece of cloth in his mouth and tied a second piece around his face so it wouldn’t fall out, and they had to force him every step down to the dungeon, past Bertholdt’s cell where he sat and did nothing as Eren was dragged by.

He went wild when the guards tried to push him into the cell with Reiner, struggling so much that they couldn’t untie him before tossing him inside. He lunged for the door when they tried to shut it and managed to crawl out, clawing and kicking at their legs. He scrambled halfway down the hall before he was tackled and dragged back by the ankles. His fingernails were cracked and bloody from trying to dig into the bricks.

“Goddammit,” one of the guards panted, kneeling down on Eren’s back and breathing hard. “Where the fuck is Captain Levi? He was supposed to come help us.”

Eren froze at the name. The guards took advantage of that and hauled him up, carrying him back toward Reiner’s cell. Eren flipped onto his back and kicked at them again. If he could just stall until the corporal got here, he could—

“What the fuck is going on here?”

The guards all flinched and let go of Eren, dropping him. Eren blinked a few times, his vision returning to normal. Levi loomed above him, sparing a quick glance down to where Eren was looking up at him hopefully.

“We can’t get the damn thing in there,” one of the guards said.

Levil’s head jerked up to look at Reiner’s cell down the hall. “You’re putting him in there? _Now_?”

“We were told to,” the guard replied. There was a twinge of raw fear in his voice as the corporal continued to stare at him coldly. “And we were told that you were going to come help us . . . sir.”

“We got the letter and everything,” another one piped up, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper and holding it out for Levi to read. Eren glimpsed an official-looking seal and signature. He saw something in the corporal’s expression grow murderous, then his whole face went blank. He crumpled the paper up and let it drop.

Eren began struggling again when Levi took hold of him from under the arms and helped carry him to the cell. He thrashed, gagging on the cloth when the corporal snaked an arm around his throat and yanked his head back so he couldn’t move it. Levi's arm was tense and tight as a vice. He grabbed hold of the knot at the back of the cloth and untied it just as Eren was set down on the cell floor. Levi kept a firm, inhumanly strong grip on him as he pulled the outer cloth away and stepped back, shutting the door in Eren’s face and locking it with an expression as flat and unyielding as the cell wall.

Eren spat out the piece of cloth in his mouth and shouted hoarsely after Levi and the guards. They’d left his hands cuffed behind him. He sat on his knees and hit the cell door with his head in frustration, swearing at the pain and the tears and the unwelcome wetness he felt sliding down his leg.

He felt helpless but refused to admit it. He turned his head and saw Reiner, who sat with his hands in his lap, two long, thick chains leading to the wall behind him. His clothes were torn and bloody and he himself looked a little worse for wear; it was evident in the dead look in his eyes and the way his broad shoulders were slumped.

He deserved every miserable second he’d been rotting down here, Eren thought viciously, baring his teeth at him to ward off the pang of wanting that throbbed through his lower body.

Hange appeared who knew how many hours later, her assistant in tow. She was quiet as she peered in and saw Eren sprawled on his back, sweating like crazy and feeling like he was going to die of horniness and disgust and uncontrollable rage.

“Let me out of here,” he ground out through his clenched teeth. He wanted nothing more than to shed himself of his clothes, but it was impossible with his hands bound like this. Hange ignored his request and reached through the bars, grabbing hold of his cuffs and unlocking them. She sprang back when he grabbed for her, catching hold of her boot and clawing desperately when she took it away.

“Please,” he said, “why am I here? What have I done?”

“It’s not what you’ve _done_ ,” she said, looking away at the sound of footsteps. A group of other people gathered in the hall outside the cell, some of them looking at Eren like he was something on the bottom of their shoe, some of them craning their necks to look at Reiner. “It’s what you need to do.”

Eren ignored them as they spoke amongst themselves, wondering loudly why he was just sitting there. He undressed himself with trembling hands and was at a loss at what to do next. In the past he’d always somewhat managed to get through his heats by masturbating, but he couldn’t do that here. He refused to. But over time the familiar haziness enveloped him and he started stroking himself anyway, leaning against the cell bars and gasping when he slid two fingers inside himself with his other hand. He heard murmurs, some disapproving, some curious, as he stroked himself harder and harder and gave a frustrated scream when it only made him feel worse.

Someone kicked him in the small of his back and someone else prodded him forward. Hange told them sharply to stop. Eren paid them no mind; his eyes fell on Reiner again and everything made sense.

He pulled himself into Reiner’s lap and grabbed hold of his face, staring into his eyes with a mixture of lust and burning resentment. Reiner stared back, his lids heavy and his cock hard where it strained inside his pants and poked against Eren’s ass. Eren kissed him roughly, biting when he remembered how angry he should be and slowly rocking himself back against Reiner’s cock.

Everything about this was wrong, wrong, _wrong_. He pushed Reiner against the wall and yelped when Reiner’s hands gripped him at the waist, his cuffs making a sharp clinking sound. Reiner guided him onto his back and slid one hand to his inner thigh, his fingers brushing the underside of Eren’s cock as he touched his hole.

Eren kicked him in the gut.

For the next ten minutes they fought, struggling for control. Eren didn’t relent until he was back in Reiner’s lap, his breathing ragged and stuttered from exertion. When he felt Reiner’s lips glide along his throat he snarled. He hissed when Reiner pushed into him. They moved together disjointedly, growling at one another.

The people outside the cell were still watching, still talking. They spoke to Hange and to each other, growing hushed when Eren screamed as Reiner knotted him. He tried to calm down and get used to the sensation, but it hurt like hell. He rested his chin on Reiner’s shoulder and tried to ignore the way his cock twitched inside of him.

When Reiner’s knot went down they moved away from each other. Reiner sat back and wiped the sweat from his face while Eren moved onto his side so his back was to the cell bars. The raw, burning desire he’d felt was dimming, but he knew it would come back. When it did they fucked again, and again, and again, until Eren’s heat died down for good and his mind grew clear enough to process what had happened. The day after, he was taken back to his own cell and left alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING discussion of miscarriage

Eren still had bad dreams about the time he and Reiner were together. They always left him breathless and sweaty and, more than anything, deeply ashamed. The days after he had those kinds of dreams he would ignore the deep biological urge to look after Bertholdt and stay as far away from him as possible, stewing in his own anger. On those days, Bertholdt likewise kept to himself.

It was hard to tell now what made him feel sick—there were so many different things that could be responsible. About a month later he continued feeling nauseous and thought nothing of it, accepting it wearily. He went to sleep that night with horrible cramps and woke up to bloody sheets.

He was quiet when a guard brought their breakfast and, seeing the sheets, said, “I'll get Dr. Marion.”

He stripped and washed himself in the large basin that had been brought into their cell, scrubbing himself clean before drying off and dressing, not daring to let the relief show on his face when Hange arrived with Dr. Marion.

“Sometimes these things just happen,” Dr. Marion told Eren, his tone consoling but his eyes cold. He took Eren’s hands in his. “It’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure the next time you’ll carry to term.”

Eren wasn’t surprised to hear that. He was just completely and utterly exhausted. “You can’t . . . you can’t put me through this again.”

“Of course we can.” Dr. Marion let go of Eren’s hands and stood up, going over to where Bertholdt was sitting on his cot, looking nervous. He kept his eyes down when the doctor touched his cheek, then his stomach. “It’s a shame to lose potential subjects, but I think it’s safe to say we’ll have two more very soon. And I’ve been gathering your medical records—your heats occur every four months. Until then, well . . . what should we do with him until then, squad leader?”

“I think some fresh air and rest would do him good,” Hange said lightly.

“Or it might make him more, ah, uncooperative.” Dr. Marion chuckled. “But it’s your call to make, not mine.”

Eren held his tongue and forced himself to behave, hoping that by “fresh air” Hange didn’t mean just taking him to a different cell. He stayed huddled on his cot all day, rejecting Bertholdt the few times he tried to console him. For the most part Bertholdt kept to himself, like usual; their desire to look after each other was palpable, but it didn’t completely smother the unease between them. Bertholdt left Eren alone and paced the cell for a while before sitting at the table. He seemed to be just as restless as Eren was.

Hange returned with dinner and the corporal later. She stood by the table while Bertholdt ate and Eren only picked at his food. “We had a meeting earlier about what to do with you while we wait for your next heat.”

Eren tore his bread into smaller pieces and said nothing.

“Levi vouched for your dedication to humanity’s cause and managed to convince the ones in charge to let us give you some freedom for the next four months. Their only requirement was that you have at least one guard with you at all times.” Her eyes flickered to where the corporal remained at the cell door, where he always stood in the event that Eren tried to break free again. Eren met his gaze for just a second before looking back down at the table. “When you’re done eating, Levi will escort you to your temporary home.”

 _Home_. Eren dropped the bread and pushed back from the table. “I’m ready now. Sir.”

There was a faint longing in his chest as Dr. Marion cuffed him and led him out of the dungeons. He wanted to get away from the cell and the other shifters as fast as Levi would let him walk, but he couldn’t quite shake the guilty, unwanted feeling that he was abandoning Bertholdt.

“Captain,” he said during the ride through the district, “can I see my friends?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Eren couldn’t stand being cooped up with him like this. When their carriage stopped outside a small townhouse he almost tripped in his haste to get out. The cuffs stopped him short, the ends of the chains gripped tightly in Levi’s hand.

“There will be guards outside at all times. If you try to run away, or do anything else out of line, I’ll have to take you back.” He let the chains go slack. “Don’t do anything rash, Eren.”

Levi took Eren’s cuffs off once they were inside. He followed Eren as he explored the small town house. The first floor had a sitting area, a kitchen, and one bedroom. A short flight of stairs led to the second floor, where there was another bedroom and a spare room with bookshelves. He took one of the books down and flipped through it. It was an old manual about how to properly take care of one’s 3DMG.

It was a boring, tedious read, but Eren read it all. How long had it been since he’d been able to indulge in a book? Years. Too many years. He put it back when he was done and chose another, leaning against the window sill and burying himself in an outdated diagram of a titan’s supposed weak points. The corporal left with a quiet warning to behave himself. About twenty minutes later the smell of stew wafted upstairs. It seemed almost like a scene from his childhood.

He set the book down and looked out the window.

\- - -

A few days later, Eren was sitting on the back steps, watching the corporal weed the garden, when the door flew open and Mikasa and Armin rushed out. A guard stuck her head out long enough to nod to Levi before going back to her post.

Mikasa and Armin crowded in on Eren immediately, talking too much, too loud, too close. He couldn’t be angry with his friends for being worried about him; he let them fuss over him and ask him where he’d gone and if he was okay and tried not to let the concerned touches of their hands make him want to scream.

“I’m fine,” he said, “really.”

“Where have you been? No one will tell us a thing.” Mikasa gave Levi a questioning look that was coolly ignored.

“That’s . . . I . . .”

“They had to make sure he wasn’t also a spy,” Levi interjected, cutting off Eren’s fumbled attempts at a lie. “We know Eren is on our side, but a lot of the bastards in charge are still suspicious.” He sat back on his heels and looked over the pile of weeds at his feet.

“Then why does he still have guards?” Mikasa demanded. “Why can’t he join us in the scouting legion?”

“They need further convincing. It’s a load of bullshit but our hands are tied. That’s the just the way it is.”

Mikasa balled her hands into fists, trembling with anger at Eren’s side. To his left, Armin was quiet. He waited until Levi went back inside before speaking. “Why are there cuff marks on your wrists?”

Eren stuffed his hands under his arms and wouldn’t let Mikasa pry them away from him. Damn—his regeneration ability had been on the fritz for the past couple of months. He cursed himself for not wearing a shirt with longer sleeves. “I was in a dungeon for a few nights. It’s nothing new.”

The atmosphere was still tense when the corporal returned with a bucket and went back to his weeds.

“Moving on,” Armin said, taking off the satchel around his shoulder and pulling out a book and a pen, “I wanted to show you this book Commander Erwin lent me. I think it’ll be useful for you to know once you’re able to join the scouting legion again.”

He flipped the book open to the first page. It was a blank journal. He began to write, continuing to speak. “It’s an older book about titan physiology, but it’s more in-depth than what we were taught in training. Maybe it’ll help you know more about yourself.”

Eren snorted, unable to believe the irony—if only Armin knew. He craned his neck and read what he was writing.

_What’s really going on?_

“Oh, yeah,” he said, taking the pen from Armin. He glanced up to where the corporal was still weeding, his back to them. “Captain Levi has a few books like this upstairs. I read a couple the other night . . .”

They kept up a false conversation as Eren slowly forced himself to write down what had happened in the dungeon. He left out most of it and only gave the basic facts: he was being held against his will so he could be studied. Without the crucial details about his heat and all the complications that entailed, his account sounded more or less like what the military police had in mind for him back at the trial. He hesitated before adding _I’ll be taken back in four months. I don’t want to go._

“It’s getting late. I guess you can finish reading this on your own,” Mikasa said, taking the book and adding her own message before handing it back to him. “Stay out of trouble.”

“I know, I know.”

They said goodbye and left. Captain looked over his shoulder as they shut the door behind them. It was impossible to read his face, so Eren had to just assume he didn’t suspect anything was going on. He looked back down at the book and read what Mikasa wrote.

_I will find a way to save you._


	6. Chapter 6

A month crawled by. Eren felt almost like he was being deprived of oxygen; that was how vital it was for him to _do_ something, anything, except sit around and try not to count the dwindling days of freedom he had left. He was forbidden from leaving the townhouse or its tiny yard without a guard, meaning he and Levi were always in each other’s space.

Eren found he had trouble holding his tongue as time wore on. One evening, as he sat at the table and watched Levi make dinner, his resentment grew until he finally snapped.

“Try the soup,” Levi said, gesturing for Eren to come try it.

“Fuck your soup.”

Levi didn’t even bat an eye, just opened up a cabinet and started looking for spices. “I guess it could use more salt.”

His indifference only enraged Eren further, but what could he do? They ate in silence. Eren didn’t savor the effort Levi put into it, just brought the spoon to and from his mouth with as little thought as possible. It was how he coped with his situation since there wasn’t much else he could do. His only consolation these days was his friends.

-

Mikasa and Armin visited when they were able to. Three weeks ago Jean, Krista, Connie, and Sasha had tagged along for what resulted in a grim, uncomfortable afternoon. He could tell they wanted to talk about the other shifters, and he could also tell they weren’t sure if he would be comfortable with that, so they talked about everything _but_ Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt, and Ymir. Connie told them a funny story about how much trouble he had getting on his horse one day, though his and Sasha’s laughs sounded just a touch too forced to be genuine. Jean kept staring at Eren and looking away when Eren caught him. After the third or fourth time Eren had had enough.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

Jean didn’t answer him right away. He got out of his chair and looked into the kitchen, then outside to where the corporal was once again in the yard. “Armin said you’re going to be taken back in a few months.”

“That’s right.”

“That makes no sense. Why would they let you out if they’re just going to take you back? And why don’t they at least let you make yourself useful until then?”

“Excuse me for being useless,” Eren said.

Jean backpedaled immediately, looking shocked. “Fuck, Eren, I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t know, okay?” Eren cut him off. He looked down at the floor, knowing that if Armin or Mikasa saw his face now then they’d know he was lying. “They don’t tell me anything.”

“Not even Captain Levi?” Krista asked. She sat down beside him and made to put a hand on his arm comfortingly. He cringed away from her, her question feeling like a slap to the face.

“No,” he murmured, “especially not Captain Levi.”

-

 _Especially not Captain Levi_. Eren set his spoon down and remained in his chair, immobile from the conflict of emotions raging inside of him. Levi finished eating as well and came by, took his bowl, and went to the sink. It was always like this; they didn’t interact any more than was absolutely necessary. Even just two months ago Eren would have felt some shred of understanding for Levil’s motives about why he did the things he did, but two months ago he hadn’t known jack shit. Now he knew even less.

“Captain,” he said, so quietly that Levi didn’t hear him. “Captain Levi.”

That time Levi heard him. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder. “What is it, Eren?”

Eren’s hands were shaking where they rested on his legs under the table. There wasn’t an intelligible or comprehensible way for him to communicate his emotions. And it wasn’t like telling the corporal that he was pissed as hell and terrified would change anything anyway . . .

He refused to let himself think like that. “Squad Leader Hange said . . . she said that you ‘vouched for my dedication to humanity’s cause.’ What . . . what exactly did you say?”

“I said that you’re passionate about killing all of the titans and they asked me if you included yourself in that category.” Levi turned back to the sink. “If shifters have the potential to bring on humanity’s destruction, then they either want the shifters dead or chained up where they’re under our control. So I said yes, you care more about the betterment of humanity than you do about yourself. That’s what it means to be a soldier.”

Eren was momentarily speechless. “So, you’re telling me I . . . I don’t even have the right to be angry or scared about any of this.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then that’s what you fucking _implied_!” Eren’s chair fell to the floor with a clatter as he sprang to his feet and slammed his fists on the table. “I’m being chained up and manipulated because that’s what it means to be a soldier? Fuck that!”

“Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to fucking _calm down_!”

Levi moved toward him, then past him. “Put your blades up.”

Eren turned around, slumping against the table as he saw six of the guards from outside crowded in the hall outside the kitchen. Levi told them that Eren was just feeling a little restless and that there wasn’t any need for them have their weapons out. Then he told them that he and Eren were going on a walk and that they wouldn’t need any company.

They made an odd pair, walking side by side through the district with Levi holding the chains to Eren’s cuffs, much like someone would hold the leash for a dog. For a while Eren let himself envision what would happen if he did transform. He liked to think that Levi wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill him, despite all of his talk, but Eren wasn’t sure about that and it frightened him.

“I’ve been thinking,” Levi said out of nowhere as they turned and began to head back toward the townhouse, “that maybe I should have said something different.”

Eren looked down at him sharply. Levi lapsed back into silence and didn’t say anything else. He took off Eren’s cuffs when they got back to the townhouse and headed for his room, the one on the first floor. Eren followed him and stood in the doorway as Levi shrugged off his jacket.

Levi sat down on the edge of his bed and kicked off his boots. “I didn’t know what else I could say that would let us give you some freedom. Of course I don’t think you can’t be upset or pissed off about all of this. But there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. All I can do is what I’m told.”

 _You could help me escape_ , Eren thought, but he didn’t dare say those words out loud to Levi, not when he couldn’t be entirely certain that Levi would do so. If he hinted at any kind of desire to run away then Levi might grow suspicious about what he, Mikasa, and Armin talked about when they visited. He couldn’t jeopardize that.

“Then go fuck yourself,” he said. He turned and went up to his own bedroom on the second floor, trembling every step of the way.

\- - -

At roughly eight months pregnant, Bertholdt was simply too tired to give an exhaustive explanation about _why_ he was eight months pregnant when Reiner woke up one morning and promptly freaked the hell out.

“What’s going—oh my god, Bertholdt, what the hell happened to you?” His eyes went wide. “Why are you—why am _I_ —am I dreaming?” He pinched himself and, upon finding himself still very much awake and lying on a cot with Bertholdt, tumbled to the stone floor.

Bertholdt figured the short distance from the cot to the floor couldn’t have hurt Reiner enough to bother worrying about. He pulled their thin blanket back around him, ignored the pain in his hips, and tried to go back to sleep.

It was impossible to sleep with Reiner shouting and beating on the cell bars, and none of the guards seemed concerned enough to make him stop.

“Reiner . . .” This wasn’t the first time in their imprisonment that Reiner had lapsed into that other mindset of his, but this was the first time it had presented itself so obviously. Bertholdt didn’t know what to do other than appeal to the part of Reiner’s being that was separate from his rational self entirely. “Alpha.”

That made Reiner shut up and look at him, though it seemed to be more out of confusion than anything. “What did you call me?”

“Alpha,” Bertholdt said.

“Alpha,” Reiner repeated. The look of confusion gradually gave way to one of distress. “That’s . . . right. I’m . . . and you’re . . .”

Bertholdt’s back was starting to hurt. He settled back down on the cot, struggling to accommodate Reiner when he staggered back to the cot and sat down heavily, his broad shoulders looking slumped as if from a heavy weight.

“What are we going to do, Bertholdt?” he asked, burying his face in his hands with a weary sigh. “I can’t take this. I just . . . I want to go back home.”

“That’s impossible,” Bertholdt murmured. “Just don’t think about it.”

The episode bothered Bertholdt for the rest of the day. It upset the omega part of him, the part of him that had grown more and more dependent on Reiner, his alpha, to be steady and dependable even when he himself couldn’t be.

They had sex that night for the first time since they’d been put back in a cell together, which was however long since Eren had been gone. They tried every position until Bertholdt found one that was somewhat manageable. Reiner spooned him, unable to keep his hands off Bertholdt’s stomach. He was fascinated by it, whereas Bertholdt himself actively tried not to dwell on its presence, even though omegas tended to like the thought of having children. Bertholdt couldn’t find anything to like about being forced into having children that in all likelihood wouldn’t get to _be_ children.

Reiner didn’t knot him this time, though he stayed inside Bertholdt since he knew Bertholdt liked to feel him come. He didn’t seem to notice that Bertholdt was deep in thought, since Bertholdt always kept his thoughts to himself. He felt a kick and lay still while Reiner placed a hand on his stomach and waited for another.

“We could name one Váli,” Reiner said, “and the other one Balder. I think those would be better than whatever you said Hange had picked out.”

“I think those fit better,” Bertholdt said. He repeated the names under his breath and realized they were only things about the twins he would ever know. It made him feel strange.


	7. Chapter 7

When Mikasa and Armin visited they were careful to bring a different blank book every time, on the off chance that Levi might notice if they brought the same one. They kept up their charade in what Eren hoped was a convincing manner. By mouth they told him about their activities within the scouting legion and by hand they plotted to help him escape.

They couldn’t decide whether they should smuggle Eren out as secretly as possible or if they would have a better chance at getting away if Eren transformed. Mikasa was against the latter option, stating bluntly that Eren didn’t have enough control as a titan to get away without hurting anyone.

He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. They decided to focus on helping him give his guards the slip. That raised the question of when they should do that and how they would get away. Armin looked into if there were any more underground passages in the district they could use. He also suggested they ask Jean and the others for help, which led to a discussion about whether they could be trusted to keep quiet.

 _I think they’d be a big help_ , Armin wrote when he got done jotting down his idea. _Mikasa and I will do anything to help you, but we’re just two people. Even just a few more—_

“No,” Eren said aloud, writing over him. _It’s harder to keep a secret the more people know about it. And unless we want to take all of them when we leave, it’d be better for them to not know._ Eren couldn’t imagine having Krista or Connie interrogated and possibly tortured because of him. He shook his head. _We can manage._

_Well, we have two more months._

They stashed the journal in Armin’s bag and brought out an actual book when they heard Levi’s footsteps. Most days he lurked in different parts of the townhouse, sometimes cleaning, sometimes reading, and sometimes checking his gear. He’d never interrupted one of Mikasa and Armin’s visits before.

“What do you want for dinner?” 

He blinked when Mikasa and Armin looked at him, then at each other, in surprise. 

Dinner was usually silent and awkward. Tonight it was even more so. Since their fight the previous week Eren had done his best to ignore him, something that Mikasa and Armin noticed once they were in the same room together. He walked them to the front door while Levi did the dishes.

“Eren . . .” Mikasa said. She struggled to find something to say. “Is he . . . mistreating you?”

“Sort of. Not really. Can you mistreat a titan?” Eren opened the door for them and clenched the doorknob so tightly that his knuckles turned white. It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “That’s all I am to him. It was stupid of me to think he’d see me as anything else.”

They parted on a tense note. Eren stood on the front steps and watched them go. He wanted to go with them, go back to how things were. He wanted freedom. When one of the guards who stood outside the windows barked at him to go back inside he shut the door and pressed his forehead to the wood, shutting his eyes and trying to clear his thoughts. He was tired of the ever-present anger and anxiety that kept him awake at night. He’d rather feel nothing at all.

\- - - 

One blanket wouldn’t be enough.

Bertholdt picked at a small hole worn through the thin fabric. Years ago he’d been told what to expect in the event that he ever had kids. The knowledge didn’t do anything to calm his nerves. Nothing could, not even Reiner. If anything Reiner seemed to be the one more on edge. He noticed Bertholdt staring at the blanket and bothered one of the guards until they were provided with a few more.

“Is it almost time?” Reiner asked as he gave the blankets to Bertholdt, who let them rest on his uncomfortably large middle. “Are you . . . ?”

Bertholdt could only shrug. He felt so terrible these days that he didn’t know what to do or what to expect. If he were honest with himself—which he didn’t like to be—he was just ready to be done with it.

A few nights later he got what he wanted: contractions. More than pain he felt fear, so much that he was paralyzed by it. Reiner had to guide him toward the pile of blankets on the floor at the point on the wall farthest from the cell door. The guards had grown so slack in their watch that none of them realized what was going on until hours had passed and Bertholdt was completely overcome by pain.

He needed a beta, someone who wasn’t as severely affected by him as an alpha like Reiner was. Annie’s role, if she were here, would mostly consist of mediating their emotions and warding off any unwanted parties—like the doctor and Hange, who appeared at the cell door and unlocked it. Reiner placed himself between them and Bertholdt at once and wouldn’t let them by, even when the doctor threatened to have him locked up.

Bertholdt’s eyes flitted around deliriously at that. No, no, no, he needed Reiner, they couldn’t take him away, not now. Reiner was at his side immediately, even though Bertholdt was incapable of saying his name. He brought a hand to his mouth, biting down with purpose.

-

He dreamed of Berik, of the time the beta had found him hiding away during his first heat. Berik peered down over the edge of the large barrel Bertholdt had crawled into and smiled before sliding in with him. He didn’t make Bertholdt feel weird the way the others had—Berik made him feel calm.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Berik said when Bertholdt let him lean in close and put an arm around him.

“I heard.” Voices had been calling out for Bertholdt for hours, but no one thought to come by the abandoned cabin at the outskirts of the village. It was a dark and eerie place that Bertholdt would never have come to otherwise. He hadn't known what to do when he woke up that morning, at first thinking in horror that he’d wet the bed and realizing that something even worse had happened. “I don’t want them to find me.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Berik was twelve, a year older than Bertholdt and, in Bertholdt’s eyes, incredibly mature. He dug around in the pocket of his coat and brought out some leftover bread. Bertholdt scarfed it down. “Your heat, that is.”

“It’s not supposed to be this early,” Bertholdt mumbled. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hugged his long, gangly legs to his chest. He hated his body. Everyone said omegas were supposed to be short and cute and somewhat precocious, everything Bertholdt wasn’t. He’d started growing too early and was almost half a foot taller than the others his age, and was as thin and angular as a stick. “I can’t do anything right.”

“Bert . . .” Berik sighed. “Well, if it makes you feel better to stay in here, then I’ll stay with you.”

They stayed in the barrel for hours, even when it started snowing again. Bertholdt was so warm and sweaty that they didn’t really feel the cold. When it started growing dark they heard Reiner’s voice get closer until there he was, staring down from the top of the barrel and looking down at Bertholdt with an odd look in his eyes. He fell over and disappeared from sight, his fall encouraged by Berik, who leaped out at him with a yell. Bertholdt could hear them rolling around and fighting.

“What—ouch! Berik, get off of me! What’s happened to Bertholdt?”

“Go away,” he heard Berik say in a very non-Berik tone of voice.

“What’s happened to Bertholdt?” Reiner repeated with a yelp as Berik apparently pushed him. “Is he hurt?”

“He’s in heat and you don’t need to be near him right now. _Go_.”

“But—”

“Go!”

At the time no one had known what Reiner was—it was just common practice to keep anyone who hadn’t presented signs as one class or another away from omegas in heat. About a month after they infiltrated the walls Bertholdt went into heat for the second time.

It didn’t feel like just four months since the first time, but when Bertholdt woke up that morning to a sticky sensation between his legs he didn’t see what else it could be. He sat up in the pile of hay he’d slept in ever since they became refugees. His throat was sore and felt swollen and he was dripping in sweat. He looked around, dazed and feverish, and was startled to find Annie at his side, in an unusual display of physical proximity.

She was an atypical beta. While she had the “predominantly neutral” aspect down pat, she was also distant and aloof, almost cold. For the few months they’d been together Bertholdt hadn’t been sure that she was a beta at all, considering that until now she hadn’t even tried to balance out Reiner’s brashness and his own meekness.

“Lie back down,” Annie said. When he did so, feeling increasingly nervous, she tucked herself against his side, the top of her head resting against his collarbones and her knees touching his hip. “Reiner went to get food. I won’t let him near you.”

“But I want him near me,” Bertholdt whispered, relieved that betas were nowhere near as sensitive to the scent of an omega in heat as alphas were. He didn’t want Annie to know how just the sound of Reiner’s name made him feel weird. “I . . .”

“You need to listen and be quiet. If whoever owns this stable finds us, we’ll be kicked out.”

Annie kept true to her word and ran Reiner off after relieving him of the food he brought back. Reiner was indignant, and this time he knew why he was being driven away.

“He needs me—ah!” Annie sent Reiner flying.

 _Need_. The word sent weird shivers up Bertholdt’s spine. In the end Annie successfully kept Reiner away for the next four days, only allowing him near Bertholdt again when they relocated to a different place that had a large basin where they could all wash themselves of the heat scent.

It would be another three years before Reiner eventually presented as an alpha. He presented himself in the oddest way possible—he looked after their fellow trainees, in the way an older brother would. It made Bertholdt uneasy to watch him extend that alpha’s sense of duty to people who didn’t deserve it. His suspicions were confirmed when he and Reiner were sent on a training exercise alone and Reiner kissed him out of the blue.

“You smell good,” Reiner mumbled a few minutes later, looming over Bertholdt where he lay on the ground and kissing him along the throat, his lips dangerously close to Bertholdt’s scent gland. The idea of Reiner claiming him was thrilling. Bertholdt tried to remember when exactly his next heat was due, but it was hard to think straight as Reiner pulled his pants off and took hold of his cock, stroking it roughly. He moaned and writhed and whimpered for Reiner to fuck him and Reiner obliged, sliding in one finger, then two, with no problem. Bertholdt uttered a low groan—he was slick.

Reiner pushed his legs farther apart, moving closer until Bertholdt felt their cocks brush together. He gasped when Reiner pulled his fingers out, only to nudge the head of his cock inside.

“W-wait,” he cried out when Reiner began to thrust into him, slow and steady. “I think—my heat— _aah!_ ” He let himself be fucked into the forest floor, the leaves damp against the bare skin of his lower back and his ass. He didn’t know what to do with his hands other than let them wander up the broad plane of Reiner’s chest to his shoulders, where he hung on as Reiner moved more and more roughly. Their fucking was sloppy and unskilled. Reiner nipped him along his ticklish spots, hard enough to be felt but not hard enough to hurt. Again his lips lingered at Bertholdt’s scent gland, and without thinking Bertholdt tilted his head back until he was being pressed into the dirt every time they moved, his throat bare. He and Reiner met eyes, and for a moment he thought for sure Reiner would claim him, but then Reiner lowered his head and bit him on the shoulder instead.

When he felt Reiner’s knot swell Bertholdt had just enough presence of mind to push him away before they could be tied, though Reiner did come before he’d pulled all the way out. He kept Bertholdt pinned down at the waist with one hand and held his cock with the other, giving a low groan as he continued to come, covering Bertholdt’s stomach with it. Bertholdt shivered and let him do it, feeling a sudden, frightening desire to be drenched in his scent, to be marked with some sign of his possession if he wouldn’t claim him the proper way.

When it was over and they were breathing hard, coming back to their senses, Reiner kissed him again, wherever there was a patch of Bertholdt’s skin he could reach. He kissed the bruises and bite marks that were already beginning to heal, adding a sense of exhaustion to the relaxed sense of contentment that spread its way through Bertholdt’s body. 

Bertholdt’s head was swimming. He swallowed hard, not knowing what to say other than the obvious. “Reiner, you’re . . . an alpha.”

“Well, yeah,” Reiner snorted. Bertholdt felt his lips at his earlobe. “That was great. You’re great, Bertholdt. So tight.” He kissed the corner of his mouth and murmured, “I want to do it again.”

Bertholdt felt a wave of pleasure and—oh, god—more slick at the praise. His first instinct was to let Reiner do what he wanted, what they both wanted, but then he remembered what Reiner said earlier, about how he smelled good, and he remembered how he’d been slick. He tried to think again about when his next heat was and exhaled shakily when he realized it wasn’t due for at least another couple of days. They’d already taken too much of a risk as it was.

“Not now,” he said, touching Reiner’s face, feeling Reiner’s lips swollen and beaded with sweat against his fingertips. “Another time. When I’m not almost in heat. And when we’re not in the middle of a training exercise.”

Reiner lapped at the come on Bertholdt’s stomach and wouldn’t budge until it was all gone, saying it was best if they didn’t leave any evidence. Bertholdt couldn’t help but feel a little put out about that, until Reiner smiled cheekily and said they could always do it again.

“Go to the showers before someone sees you,” Reiner said as they walked through the forest, heading back toward the cabin. “I’ll tell Keith you’re not feeling well.”

“We won’t be able to be near each other during my heats now,” Bertholdt said nervously.

“Were we ever?” Reiner laughed. “I’ve always been shooed away. It won’t be any different.”

“Well, now it . . . it’ll be harder. Because we’re . . .” Bertholdt was going to say “mates” but that wasn’t quite true. They’d had sex, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were mated.

If Reiner noticed his awkward withdrawal he didn’t let on. He shrugged and glanced down at his shirt to make sure it was tucked back in properly before they reached the edge of the forest. They made to part, then turned to each other at the same time and kissed, Bertholdt ignoring the stiffness in his back and focusing on the way their combined scent still lingered in the air, on how reluctantly Reiner moved away and went to go find Keith.

When he was alone in the showers he stood under the cold stream of water and concentrated. He looked his body over in fascination when he succeeded in stopping the healing process, leaving a few faint bruises along his collarbone and, by the sting of the water, his throat. As he dried off he supposed this would be the closest he would ever get to being claimed, considering they’d infiltrated the walls for a purpose that would only be hindered if he and Reiner mated and—he buried his face in the towel—had kids. 

The very idea.

-

It was a pleasant memory, one that Bertholdt thought about a lot when he remembered the way things used to be. He was pulled from those thoughts by a sharp pain. He opened his eyes and found himself cocooned by a wall of his titan’s flesh and bone, which had a few blades sticking through from the other side, where he could hear guards shouting. Bertholdt was immediately frightened. Steam surged in a powerful blast. The guards shouted in pain now.

Reiner was at Bertholdt’s side, sweaty and disheveled. He looked down at Bertholdt and smiled for the first time in months. It was a raw, genuine smile that made Bertholdt forget the pain and the fear, if only for just a second.

“You’re doing great,” Reiner said in a hushed voice, setting something in Bertholdt’s arms. It was a swathe of blankets with a tiny red face peeking out at the top. “That’s Balder. Váli’s almost here. Just hang on a bit longer, okay?”

Bertholdt stared up at the ceiling and gave a short nod. Everything else—the guards, the pain, the wailing—became dim and muffled and insignificant as he succumbed to his dreams, his memories. He preferred it that way.


	8. Chapter 8

Two weeks before Eren’s heat was due, Dr. Marion came to call. He was led up to the book room where Eren was once again rereading a dusty copy of the Wall Cult’s scripture. Eren kept his eyes fixed on the page, forcing himself to stay calm. Dr. Marion sat in the lone chair in the room and crossed his legs, watching Eren and saying nothing. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he adjusted his glasses and leaned back.

“Have you been well, Eren?”

“Fine,” Eren muttered. Dr. Marion nodded approvingly and said he was glad to hear that. 

“I’m here to discuss something very important with you,” he said after asking a few more questions about Eren’s health. “Bertholdt went into labor a few weeks ago.”

Eren looked up at that, the omega part of him scared that something had gone wrong. He was riled by the somewhat smug glint in Dr. Marion’s eye at his reaction. “He’s fine. So are his . . . well, I don’t know if there’s a term for neonatal shifters. But they’re both fine, too.”

“Great,” Eren said, trying to pretend he hadn’t been worried. “That’s great.”

“That’s kind of what I want to talk to you about. At first my team and I wanted you to breed with Reiner again, but then we observed how differently he treats you and Bertholdt. We realized that even though he might feel some concern for you since you’re an omega, it won’t ever match what he feels for his mate. And we think that’s part of your problem.”

Eren felt his anger surge at that. He clenched the book so hard that some of its frail pages tore under his nails, though he had enough presence of mind to keep his mouth shut.

“We think it would be better for you to breed with someone you don’t despise,” Dr. Marion continued. 

How considerate, Eren thought. It didn’t matter what the doctor was saying, though. He, Armin, and Mikasa had finally gotten a clear plan of how they were going to take him away. He didn’t know what they would do once they got away from this mess, but they’d all decided to worry about that when the time came. “That would be . . .” It made him feel sick just to humor the doctor. “That sounds . . . better.”

“However, that presents a problem. Reiner is the only alpha we have in confinement. So if we had you breed with someone else they would be a non-shifter.” Dr. Marion looked him over thoughtfully. “And given how intense omegas’ heats tend to be, it would have to be someone capable of restraining a titan shifter with little control. That narrows our pool of candidates down significantly. I think you know where I’m going with this.”

Eren said nothing.

“Captain Levi is the best humanity has to offer. Or he was.” Dr. Marion uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, looking contemplative now. “I’m sure he didn’t tell you this because he didn’t want you to worry, but he’s on probation of sorts. It came about when he was injured trying to rescue you.”

Eren didn’t want to listen to this.

“I’m the doctor he was sent to when the scouting legion returned from that expedition. It was much more serious than just a simple broken ankle, I’m afraid. The reason we assigned him to guard you shifters in the first place is because he can’t fight regular titans anymore. It’s just too risky.”

Dr. Marion took off his glasses and wiped them with the hem of his shirt. “And then there’s the new crop of recruits. They’re all exceptionally talented, especially—what’s her name—Mikasa? I’ve heard good things about her. Incredible things. She’s young and, more importantly, uninjured. There’s been talk of dismissing Captain Levi from the scouting legion. And considering his background, there’s also been talk of ‘dismissing’ him entirely. He’s unneeded at this point.”

“Don’t tell me this.” The book fell from Eren’s hand. He was backed against the wall, as if hoping it would swallow him up. “Stop talking.” He looked at Dr. Marion helplessly, a voice in his head repeating, _Your fault, it’s all your fault._

“Do you understand what I’m asking, Eren?” Dr. Marion rose from the chair and walked toward him, clasping his hands behind his back. “There _is_ a way for you to help Captain Levi.”

“I _hate_ Captain Levi,” Eren whispered. That was a lie. All of his anger at Levi these past few months seemed so petty, so stupid now. Could he blame him for wanting to save his own skin? That was what Eren had been planning to do these past three and a half months, wasn't it? “You can’t—”

“I won’t,” Dr. Marion said softly. He was close enough to put a hand on Eren’s shoulder and give him a sympathetic smile that wasn't the least bit comforting. “It’s entirely your choice. I just thought you had a right to know.”

He stepped away from Eren and headed for the door. “You have two more weeks to decide.”

\- - -

Levi was in the middle of sweeping when Dr. Marion came back downstairs. There was something in his expression that made Levi want to punch his teeth out.

“Would you mind making tea?” he asked, taking a seat at the table. “I need something to relax.”

While the water boiled Levi put the broom away and pulled his cravat down from where he’d had it over his mouth. “What made you decide to visit? Eren doesn’t have to go back for another two weeks.”

“Oh, I know. I just had something important to discuss with him.” Dr. Marion set his glasses on the table and rubbed at his temples. “I’ve been debating for months now whether to tell him or not, and I finally decided I should. He has a right to know.”

 _Know what?_ Levi wanted to ask, but it wasn’t any of his business.

Dr. Marion sighed and said, “Actually, it involves you, too.”

Oh. “Yeah? How so?” Levi poured the tea and set a cup in front of the doctor before taking a seat himself.

Dr. Marion took his time replying. He let his tea cool down, then sipped at it, then fiddled with his glasses. Levi was starting to get irritated when he finally said, “Well . . . we need you to breed with him.”

Levi almost spat his tea out. He set his cup down and stared at Dr. Marion, who shrank away from his gaze. He continued to stare as the doctor explained how he thought that maybe Eren would have a better chance of carrying to term if he bred with someone other than Reiner, then went on a long spiel about why Levi was best suited for the task.

“Haven’t you put him through enough?” Levi asked, his voice quiet but seething with disgust. “He doesn’t deserve any of this. He’s always been on our side and you—”

“I understand how you must feel, but please let me finish.” The doctor’s brief spurt of courage fizzled out when Levi glowered at him again. “As I was saying . . . well, to put it frankly, he isn’t needed.”

Levi drained his cup and filled it again, just so he’d have something to distract himself with.

“Bertholdt gave birth a few weeks ago. Both twins are perfectly healthy. Even before then he’s never given us too much trouble—he just does what he’s told. Eren, on the other hand, has always caused problems. He didn’t carry to term and he doesn’t get along with the other shifters.” Dr. Marion seemed to gain his courage back now that Levi was glaring at something other than him. “We thought that maybe having him breed with someone other than Reiner would calm him down. And if I’m completely honest we’re also a bit curious what a part-shifter, part-human child would be like.”

“I’m not listening to any more of this.” Levi stood, ignoring the doctor’s protests as he jerked him up by the front of his shirt and pulled him toward the front door. “You disturbed his last two weeks of—of normalcy for _this_? Fuck you.”

“Captain Levi, please—” Dr. Marion planted his feet and stopped just before the staircase, grabbing hold of it for support. “You need to know something else.”

“ _What_? What the fuck else do you have to say?”

“If Eren doesn’t produce offspring this time around then we’ll have to dispose of him.”

Levi’s hands slowly unfurled from the front of Dr. Marion’s shirt.

“He’s just not worth the risks,” Dr. Marion said, shuffling backward a few steps and smoothing out his shirt. “There’s absolutely no value in wasting time and effort looking after a shifter who keeps trying to run away and pick fights. So I’m asking you to consider doing this, for his sake.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Levi spat. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?”

“Whatever you want. It’s your decision.”

“And Eren—what did Eren say when you told him this?”

“He didn’t take it very well, to be honest.” Dr. Marion gestured up the stairs. “The reason I came here two weeks early was to give him—and you—time to decide what to do.”

Levi didn’t know what to say. Every word that came out of the doctor’s mouth repulsed him. “What did he say?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

They both looked up the stairs, where Eren stood on the second floor landing. He came down and stood between them, keeping his eyes down. He tilted his head so he was facing more toward Dr. Marion and moved his mouth wordlessly for a moment before saying in a flat tone, “My answer is yes.”

Dr. Marion patted him on the back with a few words of comfort and looked over at Levi expectantly. Levi looked at Eren in disbelief. He thought for sure Eren—pig-headed Eren who’d regretted the last time he did what he was told and not what he thought he should do—would say no. He wished he’d said no. But he couldn’t blame Eren for being scared and wanting to do whatever it took to stay alive. He couldn’t blame anyone for doing that.

“Then . . . that’s my answer, too. Yes.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Dr. Marion walked toward the front door, glancing at Levi as he went by. “By the way, corporal, I hope you’ve been taking care of your foot.”

Levi watched him as he shut the door, if only to have an excuse not to look at Eren. What was that supposed to mean? Dr. Marion knew full well that the light sprain in his ankle had been fully healed for months.

“Tell Mikasa and Armin that I’m outside,” Eren said, sounding defeated and tired and everything Eren wasn’t supposed to be. “They’re supposed to come by later.”

“Eren—”

“It’s okay, Captain.” Eren’s footsteps were unsteady as he went to the back door. Levi still couldn’t look at him. When Mikasa and Armin showed up a few hours later he could tell they knew something was wrong. Mikasa rushed outside when Levi told them Eren was waiting for them.

“Did you two have another fight?” Armin asked.

“How is that any of your fucking business?”

“Eren’s my friend,” Armin said, following Mikasa, “and he’s always looked out for me when I need him. I’m just doing the same.”

Levi sat at the kitchen table once he was left alone. He’d always taken pride in being the best humanity had to offer, but right now the title tasted like shit in his mouth. He didn’t know what to do other than close his eyes and hope to God that everything would turn out all right, and then hope that there was even a God at all. 

It sure didn’t feel like it.


	9. Chapter 9

When Mikasa and Armin came outside they joined Eren near the back corner of the yard, where he was looking at a patch of cornflowers Levi had planted. He didn’t know how to tell them that the plan they’d spent four months formulating so carefully had been a complete waste of their time.

Armin spoke first. “Did you and Captain Levi have another fight?”

“It wasn’t really a fight. It was . . .” He didn’t know what it was. He sat down in the grass and waited while his friends followed suit. They were all quiet for a while. “The plan is off.”

They both looked shocked. “Did he find out?” Mikasa asked. She glanced toward the back door before leaning in close. “It doesn’t matter. We can still go, Eren. Right now.”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” came a guard’s voice from the other side of the yard’s wooden fence. Armin grabbed hold of Mikasa’s arm when she made to jump to her feet and do something reckless.

“I can’t,” Eren said. Something inside of him seemed to curl in on itself and wither. The words sounded like they came from someone else’s mouth—they couldn’t have possibly come from his. Mikasa and Armin were looking at him as if he were a stranger. He hated keeping secrets from them like this. He wanted to go back to the days when they could be certain about one another, so when Armin asked, “Why not?” he told them.

He told them about his heats and about the scientists and doctors who wanted to take advantage of that. He told them about being put in a cell with Reiner, then Bertholdt, and then about his miscarriage. He told them about Levi, his voice trembling by the time he stopped and looked down at his hands, not sure if telling them made him feel better or worse.

“That's . . .” Armin said, pressing a hand to his mouth in thought.

“They can't do that to you,” Mikasa said, fuming. “We're going to take you away while we have the chance.”

“I still don’t advise that,” the guard from earlier piped up.

“Neither do I.”

They all jumped; Levi was standing there. Mikasa got to her feet and looked down at him, obviously struggling to stay respectful while still being angry. Levi’s eyes were cold as they met hers, and after a moment of glowering they seemed to reach some sort of emotional armistice.

“The two of you need to go.” He ignored Mikasa’s renewed look of anger. “Those guards out there report to the people who get to decide what kind of fucked up experiments Eren can be put through. You’re going to make things worse.”

Levi followed Mikasa and Armin to the door and made sure they left without trying to make off with Eren anyway, leaving the two of them alone again. Eren went back upstairs and stayed there for the rest of the evening, skipping out on dinner. He regretted it once it was the middle of the night and he was still awake, anxious and hungry. He managed to get in a couple hours of sleep before Levi woke him up and told him they were going to see Commander Erwin.

Being confined in a carriage together was just as uncomfortable as it had been four months ago. As they rode Eren tried to think of something to say. “How is he doing?”

“Shitty,” Levi replied. “A lot of people who want him out of the scouting legion are trying to use his injury as an excuse.”

A wave of guilt washed over Eren at that. He was silent during the rest of the ride, not speaking again until the carriage stopped in front of a building. Levi led him up stairs and through hallways until he found the door he wanted. He went in without knocking and strode to Commander Erwin’s desk. “I brought him.”

Erwin looked up when Eren entered. He seemed to look a little older than Eren remembered. There were more lines on his face and gray streaks in his hair. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to meet with you sooner,” he said to Eren. “Between your situation and mine there just wasn’t ever a good time." 

Levi scowled and went to the window, turning his back on both of them.

“He also informed me of your impending deadline,” the commander went on, gesturing for Eren to sit. Eren did so, “and asked me to see what I can do.”

“What _can_ you do?” He let himself hope for just a moment that Erwin would be able to save him, then pushed the thought from his mind. Things just didn’t work like that.

“We could request another hearing and see if we can convince Dr. Marion and his team to consider what you’ve contributed to our cause and accordingly grant you some freedoms.” The commander glanced over at the corporal. “But Levi also told me that so far Dr. Marion has been less than pleased with your behavior.”

Just hearing the doctor’s name made Eren’s blood boil. He wanted to scream that he had only ever done what anyone else would do when they were chained up and forced to do things against their will, but he recognized with a detached kind of weariness that Dr. Marion and his team didn’t give a fuck that he had a right to human emotions. In their eyes he didn’t.

He’d already given up, he realized with a touch of numbness. He’d already said yes.

“What should I do?” he asked, straightening up his shoulders.

“Whatever that shithead doctor tells you to,” Levi said, right before there was a delicate knock at the door. Eren could tell just by the soft, self-assured footsteps that it was Dr. Marion, who, like Levi, strode in without waiting for Erwin to give him permission.

“I think that would be an excellent course of action,” Dr. Marion said, settling a hand on Eren’s shoulder. Eren’s gut reaction was to shove him away. Instead he kept obediently still and let the doctor do what he wanted. “There’s no need to have a hearing, commander. I’m quite willing to be a little more lenient with Eren if he can demonstrate more self-restraint than he has in the past.”

The hand on Eren’s shoulder squeezed him as if to accentuate his point.

“There _is_ something you can do to prove you’re willing to be more cooperative,” Dr. Marion continued. “Now that Bertholdt is no longer pregnant I wanted to perform some experiments on him like we have with Ymir. But I’m afraid he hasn’t been very . . . _animated_ these past few weeks. So perhaps you could take his place.”

Eren kept his eyes fixated on a point just over Erwin’s head, knowing that if he looked at Dr. Marion’s smug face now he’d want to punch him.

“Give me the two weeks until your heat to perform my experiments, and I’ll be happy to consider allowing you to remain outside of a cell during your pregnancy. I suspect that might be part of why Bertholdt has been so lackluster lately.”

What the fuck did he expect to happen? Eren felt the omega part of him grow outraged, threatening to spoil his efforts to remain calm.

“What do you say, Eren?” Dr. Marion’s hand was at his face now, forcing Eren to look at him. There was a definite look of triumph on his otherwise plain, unassuming face.

“Yes.” Eren wet his lips. “Sir.”

\- - -

After months of being chained up with no one to interact with, Ymir thought for sure she’d be alone until she died. When she heard her cell door being unlocked long before her next meal was due, she was surprised to see two guards drag in Bertholdt. There was a glazed look in his eyes and the skin around his eyes was pinched and red from a recent shift. The guards dropped him down beside her and left, not even bothering to put him in cuffs.

Ymir didn’t really care what his deal was, but she _was_ a bit curious, and it _was_ kind of nice to have someone to finally talk to. She leaned over and gave a low whistle as she got a better look at his face. “Yikes, Bert. You look even worse off than me.”

He whimpered. Even though she knew he was a coward it was almost chilling to hear.

The next few weeks kind of made Ymir wish she were still alone. Bertholdt just lay there, not even moving when it came time to eat. Ymir thought threatening to eat his share would get some kind of reaction, but he was still, as if to say “go right ahead.” She didn’t. Instead she helped him eat, wondering why she bothered. Whatever. She didn’t want to share a cell with a corpse.

When the guards brought their meals they also gave Bert a cursory look-over, something they’d done to Ymir whenever they were looking for a reaction or effect from an experiment.

“So,” she said one day, about a month and a half (by her estimations) after Bertholdt joined her, “have they done anything weird to you yet? Forced you to transform so they can see how your titan form connects to your human one? Prodded you? Cut you up? Hmm?”

“They made Reiner mate with me when I was in heat.”

Ymir was only half-listening, so at first she didn’t realize that he’d spoken. Then she didn’t understand. Bertholdt didn’t say anything else to enlighten her, leaving her to parse out everything for herself.

“You . . .” Where was she supposed to start? “You can get pregnant?”

He seemed to nod; it was hard to tell when he was lying face down.

“Are you . . . pregnant now?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh.” She didn’t want to think about what might have happened to the little Bert. “Well . . . that’s rough.”

Bertholdt continued to be tiring to be around, but Ymir figured she could have it worse. She thought about maybe trying to cheer Bert up, if only to keep his mood from affecting hers, but she was at a loss. The only one who ever really took charge when it came to Bertholdt was Reiner, and who knew where the hell he was.

They spoke a few times, mostly about what exactly allowed Bertholdt to bear children. He explained in a hushed, exhausted voice how shifters could be one of three classes and what the differences between them were. He seemed a little surprised, or as surprised as he _could_ seem, when she told him she never noticed any of that crap about herself. It made sense, in a way, considering she’d stolen her power.

She used to entertain the idea that Historia would come dashing in and save her, but after months and months of waiting she’d figured that was just a pointless fantasy. Maybe she could wait, see if Reiner would come busting through the cell door for Bertholdt, and sneak away while the guards were distracted.

She didn’t expect it to actually happen.

Her first sign that something was going on was Bertholdt sitting up for the first time in over a month. She was half-asleep and was only vaguely aware that he’d moved when she heard shouting, and then a guard went flying by as if he’d been picked up and thrown. After another few guards went sailing by she was wide awake. Reiner appeared at the cell door, his clothes disheveled and his chest heaving. He looked wild, almost savage, as he unlocked the cell door with the keys he’d no doubt taken off one of the guards before tossing them aside.

“Go get those and let me out,” Ymir said. Reiner didn’t even acknowledge her. He stooped down beside Bertholdt and lifted him up. “Hey!”

“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” Reiner said without looking at her. All of his attention was focused on Bertholdt, whose brief spurt of strength had waned.

“Fuck you too!” Ymir struggled against her chains, but they were too short for her to bring her hands in front of her. “It’s not like you’re going to get away anyway. They’ll catch you and chain you back up.”

Reiner carried Bertholdt out of the cell and said, “I don’t care.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT DEAD I've just had a busy few weeks at school orz

Eren and Levi were instructed to wait in a room on the first floor of the building above the dungeons. Squad Leader Hange burst in on them before too long and whisked them away, squealing for Eren in particular to see the babies.

“Aren’t they adorable?” she whispered excitedly as she crept into the room they were being held in. Eren peered into the crib closest to him and was overcome by a strong, sudden wave of emotion. The baby stirred in his sleep and stretched out a pink, chubby hand toward Eren, as if sensing that an omega were near. Eren lifted him out gently and cradled him, oblivious to the way Hange and Levi were watching him as they started talking to one another.

He didn’t mean to hold the baby for very long—he reminded him too much about what he and Levi would have to do. But the longer he held him the crueler the idea of putting him down and leaving him and his brother alone in this room became. So Eren held him and let him wiggle around in his arms, all the while afraid that he was going to drop him. The other twin started fussing when he saw his brother was getting attention.

“They put _you_ looking after them?” Levi asked, his tone too dull for his words to have any real bite. And that, Eren though, was the most worrying thing about this situation.

“Dr. Marion and I couldn’t agree on how they should be cared for . . . I suggested giving them to a foster family to raise until they display shifter tendencies, but he’d rather keep them where they can be monitored. So, Moblit and I are in charge of them for now—the MPs are in charge of looking after the other shifters, and pretty much all other soldiers have been stationed down in Wall Rose by now." She yawned. "I don't suppose there's anything Erwin can do about that, is there?" "No. I'm surprised they haven't carted him off to the gallows by now," Levi said darkly. "They haven't officially demoted him yet, but with that arm of his I'm sure they'll think of an excuse before too long." At the soonest lull in their conversation Eren cleared his throat. "Uh, Squad Leader Hange."

“Hm?”

“How is Bertholdt? Is he okay?”

He turned around just in time to see the two of them exchange a glance. It made him uneasy, but he needed to assuage the latent part of him that wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —stop worrying about what had happened to the other omega.

“He’s been unwell,” she replied vaguely. “Even when Reiner tried to break them out last week he—”

“They tried to run away?” Levi interrupted. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

“There wasn’t any need. Like I was saying, Bertholdt's so out of it that we caught Reiner with relative ease. If he'd tried to escape alone he might have made it.” Hange beckoned for them to follow her. Eren set the baby down before going back to the first room. “They’ve been put back in a cell together for now. If Reiner wasn’t our only alpha then we’d probably have gotten rid of him by now. All he does is cause trouble . . .”

Levi blanched but ignored Hange when she asked what was wrong. As they walked she explained the experiments Dr. Marion wanted her to conduct on Eren for the next two weeks. They all involved chaining him to the wall, inciting partial transformations, cutting him open, and toying around with his two forms while observing how they were connected. She was in the middle of explaining how they’d run a similar experiment on Ymir to less than favorable results when a guard knocked on the door and said that Eren’s new cell had been prepared.

“I’ll do my best not to make it any more painful than it has to be,” Hange said. For the first time Eren could see a hint of guilt on her face that she normally hid. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

It didn’t do anything to quell the resentment that Eren had built up for both her and Levi over the past few months, but it was a relief, albeit a small one, to know that they weren’t torturing him out of pure sadism. It was nice to believe that they still considered him a person. He hoped they did.

\- - -

Bertholdt woke up to the sound of snoring.

He sat up with a headache so monstrous that he couldn’t even see at first. He blinked a few times and felt around until his fingers bumped into Reiner, who was sprawled beside him on the cell floor, fast asleep. Bertholdt rested his hand on Reiner’s shoulder and his head on the wall, closing his eyes. For a few minutes he tried to make sense of the situation—everything up until now was a mass of memories that he couldn’t remember clearly enough to comprehend. All he knew was that it left a sour taste in his mouth.

He shook Reiner with little conviction, but he woke up at once, making an unintelligible noise when he realized Bertholdt was awake. He sat up and pressed his forehead to Bertholdt’s. Neither one of them spoke.

“I was with Ymir,” he said after a while, struggling to make sense of the few things he did remember. “And now I’m not.”

“I brought you to my cell,” Reiner replied, resting his head on Bertholdt’s shoulder. His hair tickled the side of Bertholdt’s neck. “They kept you down there for a month. I couldn’t stand it, being in here by myself again.”

“Where are—” Bertholdt shut his mouth, feeling nauseous at the very thought of the twins. He didn’t know how to describe the way he felt and what it meant, other than that he was relieved and ashamed of it. “Where are the guards?” he asked instead.

“There’re three of them out there,” Reiner said, pretending he didn’t know what Bertholdt had started to ask. “They think I’m going to try to bust us out of here. As if . . .”

They talked on and off for hours, about the other shifters, about the guards, about their hometown. Bertholdt felt numb by the time their conversation eventually trailed off for good. Reiner had moved down further, his head resting in Bertholdt’s lap. He was closer to Bertholdt’s waist than he was comfortable with, but like usual he said nothing.

-

“Someone’s going to catch us,” Bertholdt said for what must have been the fourth time in the past ten minutes. It was the closest he could bring himself to protesting, and even then it was more an observation of what would probably happen than a reason for them to put their clothes back on before someone else came into the mess hall.

They were on dish-washing duty that night, just the two of them, and the minute the last few stragglers had finally gotten up and left, and they’d each deposited an armload of dishes in the large wash basin in the kitchen, Reiner had pulled Bertholdt into another one of his sudden kisses that ended with one of their shirts tossed on top of the piles of dishes and the other somewhere behind a crate of potatoes.

“Not if we’re quiet,” Reiner muttered, looking down at Bertholdt’s chest with interest. Unlike last time, it was nowhere near time for Bertholdt’s heat, meaning they weren’t as consumed by the singular hormonal desire to fuck each other now now _now_ like they had before. Bertholdt wasn’t yet sure if he preferred it this way; he had no idea what to expect now. He tensed when Reiner kissed his collarbone, then his nipple. It surprised him so much that he lashed out on instinct, his palm connecting solidly with Reiner’s jaw.

“I’m sorry,” he was still saying five minutes later, when steam stopped coming from Reiner’s mouth, indicating his tongue wasn’t bleeding anymore. “I’m sorry.”

He peeked out from behind his fingers when he heard Reiner laughing. “I forgot how sensitive you are.”

Bertholdt hugged himself, rubbing his arms against the cool air. “Do you still want to—?”

“Yeah. Do you?”

He nodded, and this time was careful to not lash out at Reiner whenever he did something that made him feel weird in the pit of his stomach. It was a good kind of weird, a sort of tight, dizzying sensation that was magnified every time Reiner touched him. Bertholdt was glad that he wasn’t prone to loud outbursts when Reiner took his cock in his mouth and tried to figure out what was the best way to make Bertholdt bite his lip harder to keep quiet.

They jumped away from each other and scrambled to find their shirts when the door to the mess hall opened and the sound of Keith’s footsteps reached the kitchen. He found them scrubbing away at the first load of dishes and berated them for working slow, then stood there in the doorway glaring at them for the rest of the evening.

In the barracks that night Reiner moved right up behind Bertholdt and slid his hands down his pants. Bertholdt stuffed a hand in his mouth to stifle the embarrassing sounds he made when Reiner slid his cock between his thighs, brushing it against Bertholdt’s. They fucked like that for a while, panting and gasping as quietly as possible. Bertholdt peeked out from under the covers when they were done, making sure that everyone else was still asleep.

“What are we going to do about this?” he whispered furiously, feeling the stickiness between his legs from both his orgasm and Reiner’s. He buried his face in his hands and bit his lip even harder when Reiner decided the thing to do was lick it all away. By the time he was done it must have been the middle of the night. They were both going to be tired at training the next day.

After a while a few of the other trainees made comments, some of them jeering and downright rude, about the fact that they slept cuddled together. Over the next few months it made Bertholdt feel a little proud. He thought it would be too presumptuous of him to think of Reiner as his mate so early on in their courtship—if that was what they could call this _thing_ they had—but there wasn’t any denying how good it made him feel to know that people saw him and Reiner together.

What he didn’t like was that, over time, Reiner became even more vested in the others’ wellbeing. At first it had been tolerable and could be rationalized as him trying to fit in better with the humans, but as their third and final year of training started Bertholdt began to grow extremely uncomfortable. It came to a head after another training exercise in the woods. They sat side by side against a log, watching the small fire they’d made to warm themselves up.

Bertholdt leaned against him the way he had dozens of times before. Reiner didn’t reciprocate the affection, but he didn’t completely reject it until Bertholdt went to kiss him. He turned his head away and stared at the fire, leaving Bertholdt to wonder what he’d done wrong.

“What’s with you today?” Reiner said, and then he did move away from Bertholdt. It couldn’t have been more than an inch but to Bertholdt it felt like a huge gap. “If you’re cold I can get some more firewood.”

“I . . .” Bertholdt was at a loss. Another few minutes passed by, the silence interrupted only by the crackle of the fire and the distant sound of insects and animals in the forest.

His last heat had ended two days before. He’d spent the whole week thrashing around on a cot in the sick bay, every inch of him yearning desperately for Reiner, impatient to be with him again. The day before it began Reiner had kissed him outside of the storage shed, his hands sliding around teasingly to Bertholdt’s ass. It had reminded Bertholdt of their first time, how uncomplicated and earnest and normal it had been.

“Can I tell you something?” Reiner asked, jerking Bertholdt from his reverie. He looked over at Reiner, hopeful that maybe he’d apologize for acting strange and admit that he was just kidding around.

“Sure,” Bertholdt said. “Anything.”

“I like Krista.”

It was Bertholdt’s turn to stare at the fire.

“She’s really cute, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

Two nights later, he had the nerve to lie down next to Bertholdt and put his arms around him like nothing was wrong. Bertholdt let him do it, only because he was relieved to learn that Reiner didn’t hate him after all, but he was still confused and angry. He didn’t say anything about it, and he didn’t say anything the next time Reiner brushed off his attempts to kiss him or touch him. After the third time it happened he stopped reaching out to Reiner entirely, even when Reiner wasn’t acting strange. When he kicked down the gate to Trost and met back up with him and Annie, and Reiner chose to follow Jean instead of his orders, he realized that the change in Reiner’s behavior was something drastic and deep-rooted, something he couldn’t have prevented even if he’d tried. 

At least, that was his excuse.

-

They didn’t talk about the twins, not for at least a week. Bertholdt was still trying to sort through his emotions by himself when Reiner broached the subject.

“They’re keeping them upstairs,” he said halfway during their midday meal, between sips of water. “When your titan dissolved after the birth the doctor and Hange took them and some guards took you.”

Bertholdt’s first instinct was to stay quiet or, if he did choose to speak, change the subject, but he was tired of doing that, tired of repeating the same maddening cycle of frustration and lack of saying what he felt that had been going on since they’d first set foot inside these damned walls. “How do you feel about them?”

“Balder and Váli?” Reiner said. “I want to see them. Don’t you?”

Bertholdt stuffed a chunk of bread in his mouth. When he ran out of bread he looked down at the floor, too ashamed to meet Reiner’s eyes. “No.”

“Why not?” Reiner asked incredulously. “They’re our—our _kids_.”

“I didn’t want them.”

“But they’re here now. Don’t you want to—?”

“I’m afraid,” Bertholdt whispered.

Reiner blinked, looking astonished. Bertholdt went on. “You have no idea . . . you don’t know what it was like to—to feel them, to carry them, and not wanting to, being forced to do that. I hated it. And I . . . I’m afraid I’ll feel that way about them.”

He took the cup of water and drained it, not wanting to say anything else about it but not wanting Reiner to continue looking at him like that. He set the cup down. “We won’t ever see them anyway. In a few months I’ll go into heat again and I’ll . . . we’ll—”

He didn’t want to think about it.


	11. Chapter 11

-

His first night in the scouting legion, Eren sat on his cot with his head buried in his hands, willing his body to behave. It was no use. He’d noticed over the past three years that his episodes had a reliable pattern and he was due for the next one in a little over a week.

They’d been somewhat manageable when he was a trainee. He ran away to the forest for the first few times, then began hiding in different storage sheds when Mikasa and Armin decided to look for him. They’d used their gear and everything, weaving through the forest and calling out for him. Armin must have noticed the pattern and known that it couldn’t have just been a cold or bug going around—what kind of cold came back every four months for three years straight?

He lifted his head and looked around his cell. He didn’t like being in the basement by himself at night, but he tried to suck it up. He was a member of the scouting legion now. He could figure something out. Earlier in the evening he’d been tempted to tell one of the others about his episodes, but what could he have said? That he went into fits where he couldn’t stop masturbating or begging for someone, anyone to fuck him?

He could imagine their reactions perfectly: Levi might have brushed him off with some rude comment about him being a horny brat, or perhaps Hange might have told him that it was normal for teenagers to be curious about sex. He was too mortified by the idea of explaining to them in graphic detail just what exactly happened during his episodes. All he could do was pull the blanket over him and hope that he’d be able to find a good hiding spot.

He spent the next few days investigating the headquarters while they cleaned, trying to learn what the least-visited sections were and if they would be habitable for a week. He also tried to observe when the best time to steal some provisions from the mess hall would be. He started feeling the first twinges of pain in his lower abdomen over the course of the week, though it didn’t actually start until four days after the spoon incident. He and Petra were in the middle of washing dishes when he felt a sudden trail of wetness slide down his leg.

“What’s wrong, Eren?” Petra called after him in alarm when he gave a muffled scream and ran out of the mess hall, snatching up some provisions on his way. He ran outside, glancing around to make sure no one was there to see him, then went to the well and climbed down, carefully picking his way down at the worn out bricks until he dropped the last few feet to the earthy bottom.

That first afternoon was agonizing. It was too early for the other members of the squad to realize he was hiding from them and he was in that weird transitional state where his body was affected by the heat while his mind wasn’t. He was completely level-headed as he moved around in the dirt, clawing at his clothes and biting his lip to keep quiet.

Around dinnertime he heard the faint, far-off sounds of Erd and Auruo calling for him. They got closer as dusk fell and it grew darker. They circled the well with a torch. The light wasn’t quite strong enough to reveal where Eren lay, half-naked and covered in sweat. He held himself still until Auruo cursed and told Erd they should move on and look somewhere else. As soon as the light was gone from his vision Eren’s hands continued running over his lower body, almost of their own accord. He’d kept his shirt on; the other articles of his uniform were strewn about, his straps undone so haphazardly that they hung off his lower legs and his shoulders, getting in the way. 

The heat intensified overnight. He couldn’t sleep for longer than an hour or two at a time. When the sun rose and light began filtering down into the well he moved onto his side and felt his stomach lurch. He ached all over: his wrists were both sore and his cramps were getting stronger. And the smell was overpowering, a sort of thick, hazy scent that set him on edge. He groaned and pressed the side of his face into the dirt as his body grew even warmer.

His hiding spot wasn’t the best, but it served him well for three days. The rest of the squad must have scoured every nook and cranny of the headquarters in order to come searching through the field again. Eren was so out of it that he didn’t notice he’d been found until Levi crouched down next to him and asked him what he was doing flailing around naked in the well. Eren’s body reacted instinctively to his presence. His eyes darted feverishly, taking in Levi’s face and the tenseness in his legs as he sat on his heels, waiting for an answer. No one had ever been this close to him during one of his episodes before.

Eren stared up at Levi until Hange clambered down and joined them. They both looked at Eren, who was still staring at Levi. He craved physical contact, something neither of them was willing to give beyond what was required to put his clothes back on.

“I think he shit himself,” Levi said as he and Hange held onto a rope and were pulled up from the well, Eren under one arm. Eren was more than a little light-headed but he was still impressed by how strong Levi was. “Gross.”

“No,” Hange said, “I don’t think that’s it. He looks . . .”

“He looks like he hasn’t bathed in half a week. Ugh. Smells like it, too.”

Eren was handed over to Petra and Auruo once they reached the horses, with instructions to help him bathe and eat. Eren held onto Auruo as they rode, inhaling the scent of his freshly laundered shirt. He let himself be undressed and guided into the wash basin, where Petra and Auruo took turns dumping pails of water on his head and scrubbing the dirt from his hair and face. He balked when Auruo made to wash him below the waist, grabbing hold of his wrist and wrenching his hand away. The idea of being touched by one of them like that was . . . unsatisfactory. A little insulting.

He dried and dressed himself while they lingered in the doorway of the wash room, whispering to each other. His body was going through one of its lulls, which lasted anywhere from half an hour to a full one depending on how strong his orgasm was.

“Is everything okay, Eren?” Petra asked uncertainly when he staggered by them and headed for the mess hall, drawn by the smell of lunch. “Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong the other day? We could have helped.”

He shook his head, unable to answer even if he wanted to. His throat was sore and felt swollen. When he touched it he could feel a sort of lump that wasn’t normally there. He’d noticed it before and had learned that when it reappeared he had roughly a day or two before his body went berserk. Hange was waiting for him in the mess hall with a large pot of stew, which she said he couldn’t have until he answered at least one of her questions.

Eren sat down across the table from her, squirming self-consciously when he felt more wetness between his legs. She noticed his discomfort and relented, pushing the stew toward him and waiting until he’d managed to get a few spoonfuls down his throat before starting her interrogation.

“What on earth were you doing down there?” She couldn’t stop herself from chuckling a little. “And why were you naked?”

“I was hot,” he said, his voice raspy.

She reached out and pressed a hand to his forehead, frowning now. “You feel like you have a fever. Well, that’s understandable. You must be stressed.”

“No, it’s . . . I . . .” She waited while he stammered out, “My body . . . I . . .” He stopped, realizing something. Perhaps these strange fits had something to do with his ability to shift. He told Hange in stops and starts about his episodes, going into embarrassing detail at her prompting, and finishing with, “Maybe it’s because I’m a titan. Sort of.”

Her eyes gleamed. He gulped.

-

“What do you suppose he’s dreaming about?” Hange mused, touching a strand of flesh that ran from the side of Eren’s eye to the half-formed titan he was in. Her team had split it down the neck, careful not to sever Eren’s connection with it. For the past few minutes she’d just observed him, the way his face twitched in reaction to whatever thought or dream it was that was running through his mind.

Levi shrugged from his usual place in the doorway. There was no telling when Eren could lose control of his titan and starting tearing down the walls in an attempt to escape. The last time he’d tried that had been a pain in the ass to deal with; true to his word, Levi cut him out of the nape of his titan’s neck, but only after he’d managed to pin the titan down so he wouldn’t have to sever Eren’s limbs off in order to get him out. Hange was treading in dangerous territory, poking away at the nerves and meat and seeking out a reaction. It made him queasy.

“I don’t know,” he said, as she continued to prod different strands, “but if you keep doing that he’s going to wake up, and who knows how that’ll turn out.”

“You can handle it,” she replied. It pissed him off for some reason. He stewed in his unreasonable anger while she ignored him and continued to try eliciting different responses from Eren and his titan. Levi intervened when one of the titan’s arms grew back and almost crushed Hange against the wall. After that Moblit ushered her out of the cell for a long-overdue break. She called instructions to Levi as Moblit pushed her down the hall, telling him to let Eren out and give him some water.

Levi knew the drill. He’d joined Hange for the past eleven days in this cell, watching and waiting as she studied various things about Eren, his shifting ability, and his titan. Today was comparatively tame; last week Dr. Marion dropped by and said he was interested in observing Eren’s regeneration ability, then proceeded to have Eren go through a series of somewhat cruel exercises where he had to learn how to control when and how his body healed from a number of given wounds. At least when he was submerged in a lump of meat he didn’t feel to the full extent of his senses. Levi could hope so.

“Good work,” he said as Eren sat up from the dissolving mass of his titan. “You only smashed one wall this time.”

Eren nodded absently and accepted the cup of water Levi handed him with unsteady hands. A thin cloud of steam filled the cell as the raw skin around his eyes healed. Levi noticed that he had to force himself to choke the water down. He also noticed the way Eren touched a spot on his throat and winced.

Hange noticed it, too, when she returned. She’d already studied the different effects being in heat had on Eren’s body, or so she’d reassured Levi during one of their all-nighters in the mess hall, back during that month at the scouting legion headquarters. She didn’t say anything now, nor did she look at Levi like she normally did when they wanted to communicate in a way Eren couldn’t fully understand. It was obvious what was happening.

“That’s all for today,” she said, going over to the table Eren sat on and helping him down. She watched Eren for a moment as he rubbed at his eyes, his movements clumsy and sluggish. “I think this is going to be our last session. Moblit.”

“Yes?” Moblit said from outside the cell.

“Take Eren upstairs and get a carriage. Keep a close eye on him.”

Hange waited until the echo of their footsteps died down to sit heavily on the table, sighing. “Well—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Levi said flatly. "I know.”

“Are you really okay with this?”

“Of course not. Who would be?” Levi didn’t want to talk about it. He was tired of just thinking about it. Not for the first time he wished he could go back in time and do or say something different. Well, not just something. He’d redo it all if he could.

He delayed going back to the townhouse as long as possible. After leaving the dungeons he visited Erwin at his home and lay on his tiny sofa, his feet propped up in Erwin’s lap. They barely saw each other anymore. All of Levi’s time was dedicated to keeping guard over the shifters and Erwin’s with whatever it was Erwin had to deal with nowadays.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said after about an hour of maddening silence that was broken only by the sound of Erwin flipping through his book. Levi wasn’t good at thinking of things to do on his own. He was good at following orders, but he _really_ didn’t like his orders right now.

“I don’t know how to help you,” Erwin said unhelpfully.

“That Marion bastard . . . I’d like to wring his neck.”

“Careful there. He’s an important man.”

Levi snorted. “He’s as important as a piece of shit on my boot.”

Erwin set his book down on Levi’s shins and turned the page before picking it back up. “Wasn’t he the one who helped you with your ankle?”

“Yeah. I thought he was slimy back then, too.”

They didn’t speak much other that. Levi eventually got up, lingering around for a few more minutes before seeing himself out. He walked back to the townhouse, feeling the last hints of summer in the breeze as it stirred his hair. The usual pack of guards was stationed outside as if they’d never left. He went by them without a word and hesitated on the front steps. What else was there for him to do but straighten his shoulders and open the door?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all might have noticed that I made this part of a series. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to split the overall story into two fics, simply because I have a hard time staying focused on one thing for too long and the idea of writing/reading two smaller fics seems more manageable to me than writing/reading one big one. And I got attached to the title I picked out :B
> 
> So, there will probably be another one or two chapters to this, and then I'll start working on We Dreamed of a New Life.
> 
> Also, I appreciate all of the comments you all leave; I just feel like after I reply to a certain amount it would be annoying of me to reply to more?? but then I feel rude for not replying ;___; 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

Eren flinched when he felt the mattress dip, anticipating it to be Levi. When he cracked one eye open he was a little relieved to see Dr. Marion instead, though not for long. He didn’t like the way Dr. Marion looked him over, as if sizing him up.

“Where is Captain Levi?” he asked, tutting when Eren shook his head wearily. “I headed out as soon as Squad Leader Hange sent for me. I thought for sure the two of you would be ready by now.”

It was hot in Levi’s room. Moblit tried unsuccessfully to lead Eren up to his own room when they arrived at the town house, but Eren resisted, a base part of him not wanting to violate the last safe place he had left. So Moblit brought him here and helped him out of his jacket before leaving, telling him that Levi and Dr. Marion should arrive shortly. He’d been lying in a daze on the bed for over an hour since.

Eren almost wished Levi had run off somewhere, never to return, but not ten minutes later he heard the faint creak of the front door and Levi’s footsteps down the hall. He could practically smell the hostility in the air when the Levi came in and saw Dr. Marion sitting on the bed.

“Why are _you_ here?”

“I’m here to observe,” Dr. Marion replied mildly. He patted Eren’s arm, engendering a light thrill of pleasure between his legs. “I think this will be an unprecedented occurrence, don’t you?”

“ _I_ think you need to get the hell out of my room.” Eren closed his eyes and tried not to focus on how the anger in Levi’s voice made him shiver. He imagined that Levi was angry on his behalf, however unlikely that was.

Dr. Marion moved and sat in the hardback chair in the corner, crossing his legs and settling his hands on his knees. Eren could just see him in his peripheral vision, a little smirk touching his lips. It was annoying in a small, unimportant way, and Eren soon forgot about him, his interest piqued by the sound of Levi taking off his jacket and folding it up. After he set it on the dresser he took his boots off, then went through the lengthy process of undoing his straps. Next his cravat was untied, and then he began unbuttoning his shirt. Eren watched him, feeling impatient and also a little scared when he took off his pants.

“Eren,” he said, pausing, his thumbs hooked under the waist of his underwear. “I’m not going to take your clothes off for you.”

It took a moment for him to process what Levi was saying, at which point he laboriously pulled his shirt off and fumbled with his belt buckle, his hands slow and clumsy and trembling. The air of the room was too cold, raising goose bumps as he kicked his pants away to the foot of the bed and waited. Levi came to him and sat on the edge of the mattress. Eren spread his legs on instinct, which made Levi flinch before he settled himself between them.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“I already made my choice.” Eren met his eyes for the first time in months. He didn’t like what he saw there, nor did he like how good Levi’s body heat felt against the inside of his thighs. He didn’t like the way his’s face, which had regained some sort of emotion for a moment, went back to how it always was: the face of a soldier, solemnly going about his duty. He didn’t like the mechanical way Levi kissed him, his lips stiff, and he especially didn’t like how much the lack of affection hurt.

Eren wondered faintly if someone had thought to warn Levi about his slick. He pushed in a finger without looking for lube, so he must have known. How did he know? How _much_ did he know? Who told him? What was he thinking right now, how did he feel about Eren trying and failing to hide his small gasps of pleasure at the way his fingers felt inside of him, or how Eren’s legs clamped up around his short waist when he slid the head of his cock in? Eren found himself caring less and less about that kind of thing with every thrust. Levi’s cock wasn’t as long as Reiner’s, but his was a little thicker, and he was much more level-headed. He kept his cool even when Eren began to writhe, his legs closing in too tightly around him and his fingers digging in too deep in his shoulder blades. After a while it was easy even to forget about Dr. Marion, sitting in his chair and occasionally tapping his fingers on his leg.

A vague, distant part of Eren’s mind was alarmed to realize he was eager to be knotted. He was ready for it, he wanted it, but when Levi finally came with a low swear and nothing swelled to tie them together, Eren whined. He whined harder when Levi moved away and refused to look at him, or touch him, or let him lie too close.

“Captain Levi,” Dr. Marion admonished, “I’m sure you remember the proper etiquette. I went over it with you just the other day. You need to play the part of an alpha in its entirety, not just the sexual part.”

Eren was mortified, and a little angry at himself, but he curled up beside Levi anyway. A wave of contentment washed over him when Levi put an arm around his shoulders. His respite from the heat was short, shorter than it usually was, and almost without realizing it he moved down and took Levi’s cock in his mouth. Levi’s fingers twisted in his hair, as if he wanted to push him away, but he let Eren clumsily bob his head up and down until his cock was erect again. Eren rode him the way he rode Reiner, possessive in spite of himself, clingy even though he didn’t want to be, desperate to be filled up and disgusted with himself for liking it.

As the hours passed Eren found the respites between his horny phases grew shorter and shorter until he was perpetually hot and slick and aching to be fucked. Levi, for all his strength, was only a man—one, as he reminded Eren, who wasn’t as young and full of endless energy as he was. So Eren was forced to finger himself, until Dr. Marion told him not to do that, that he shouldn’t disturb the corporal’s seed, at which point he had to bite the back of one of his hands to keep himself from screaming in frustration.

Levi pried his hand away and replaced it with one of his own, too tired to make a rude remark even when Eren bit down hard on his fingers as he stroked his own cock and tried to find some kind of release, however brief, from the white-hot desire coursing through his body. His cries were muffled as he came.

He lost track of time. Later he would remember brief intermissions, where Levi helped him drink water and eat a bit of food, none of which went down his throat without a struggle. Dr. Marion left the room periodically, coming back and sitting for another few hours at a time before leaving again. It was, if possible, even more unbearable when he wasn’t there, because then there was no target for Levi to snipe at to relieve the tension between them, and there wasn’t a clear something for Eren to focus on instead of the feeling of Levi inside of him and how much he liked it.

Eren didn’t know how many days and nights later, but he woke up from one of his lulls with an abrupt sense of clarity. He was acutely aware of every ache in his body, and of Levi’s heady scent that clung to him and the sheets. He moved onto his back and reveled in the scent, feeling it calm him, then agitate him. He noticed Levi himself wasn’t there, but in the adjacent room, bathing. Eren sat up, ignoring the throb of pain in his backside, and slid out of bed. He retrieved his clothes from where they’d been folded and placed in a neat pile on the dresser, then went upstairs to his own room. He locked the door before collapsing onto his own bed.

\- - -

Levi bathed for so long that the water was cold and it was growing light outside by the time he was done. He dried himself meticulously before dressing in his casual clothes, leaving his uniform in the same place it had been for the past three days. He remembered that Eren’s heat during that month at the scouting legion headquarters had lasted for almost eight.

He wanted to put his uniform on and go back to how things used to be. Indulging in that fantasy took only a second or two of his time before he stepped outside to tell one of the guards to send for Dr. Marion.

“Get me some booze while you’re at it. I need it.”

\- - -

Hange found Dr. Marion in Reiner and Bertholdt’s cell. She stood outside and watched them from between the bars, curious even though Dr. Marion made it clear at least once or twice a day that she had no business butting into his affairs. He was saying something to Reiner, who sat against the wall, chained by the wrists. Bertholdt was asleep, his head resting in Reiner’s lap.

Dr. Marion spoke so quietly that Hange couldn’t hear what he said, but the look on Reiner’s face went from angry, to horrified, to pleading in a span of maybe twenty seconds. The doctor did have a rather nasty, effective way with words. He left the cell looking entirely too pleased with himself, and for once he smiled when he noticed Hange and invited her to walk with him.

“Did you come to check up on them?” he asked as they went back upstairs.

“No, I came to give you a message. Eren’s heat is over.”

“Excellent.” When they reached the ground level floor Dr. Marion headed for the twins’ room. He remained quiet until they reached the room and relieved the guard on duty. Dr. Marion shut the door behind them. “I think you and I need to discuss what should happen now.”

Hange pressed a finger to her lips, urging him to speak more softly. The twins were sleeping peacefully now, but they were quick to awaken and cry. “You’re not going to put Eren back in a cell, are you?”

“For the time being, no. He’s managed to keep himself under control. And he’s so determined that I’m afraid keeping him here any longer will just stress him out and make him even angrier.” Dr. Marion laughed. “But you should have seen him with Levi—he was so compliant. I honestly don’t know if it was because of the heat or . . .”

“Or?”

He smiled and shook his head. “It’s nothing. I just think it’s so _fascinating_ , this entire dynamic they have. I think we should concentrate on learning more about the shifters. Perhaps we can utilize Bertholdt’s next heat and see if we can get some information from Reiner then. I’m sure he’d be more than willing to talk if his mate’s in danger.”

“Theoretically that might work,” Hange pointed out. “Realistically we’ll all be ripped limb from limb at the very least.”

Dr. Marion looked thoughtful for a few minutes. He stood by Balder’s crib and glanced down at him before looking back at Hange. “Well, I’ve observed quite a bit about alphas and omegas, but our knowledge of betas is sorely lacking. I think we should refocus on trying to get Annie Leonhart to come out of that crystal.”

“We’ve tried everything. Blades, explosives, Levi . . .”

“Hmm. Well then . . . what if, instead of using Bertholdt’s next heat to interrogate Reiner, we use his next heat to draw Annie out?”

Hange stood up straight from where she’d been bent over Váli’s crib. The idea had never once occurred to her, but it made sense. It was still a risky idea—the damage the Female Titan had dealt wasn’t anything to sneeze at. “I hope you don’t mean to provoke her. Who knows? Enraging a beta might be just as bad as enraging an alpha. It might even be worse.”

“Squad Leader,” he replied, “I have no intention of making anyone mad. I merely have a goal I would like to achieve. For starters we could put Bertholdt in the dungeon with Annie and, if that doesn’t do anything, perhaps we can put him through a series of, ah, enticements for her. Do you think that can be arranged?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Excellent. I’ll leave the preparations to you.” He opened the door, nodding farewell. “I’ll be going to check on Eren now.”

Hange leaned against the crib and ran a hand through her hair. “Oh,” she said wearily, watching Váli fuss in his sleep. “I’d say you have it easy, but I’m afraid you might have it the hardest of all of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I'm excited to work on the next part :)


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